Analysis of Immigrants’ Residential Preference and Ethnic Segregation in Yenagoa Metropolis

Abstract

Migrants from diverse ethnic background now live in Yenagoa city. But instead of being a city with culturally mixed neighborhoods, the various ethnic groups lives in residential areas that are segregated by ethnicity. This paper thus seeks to investigate how the migrant’s preference in the choice of initial residence determine the dimension of ethnic residential segregation in Yenagoa Metropolis and its neighborhood impacts. Using the chi-square statistical techniques, result shows that there is a statistical significant relationship between migrant’s residential preferences and ethnic neighborhood composition. On the other hand, the multiple regressions revealed that there are differences in the socio-economic characteristics that explain segregation within each ethnic group. Such that for instance, segregated Urhobo/Isoko and Hausa neighborhoods were found to have lower socio-economic characteristics, such as lower education and income, than segregated Ijaw places.