The effect of cultural consumption on the integration of refugees in The Netherlands Master thesis Cultural Economics and Entrepreneurship

Research shows that there are positive social effects of cultural consumption on both individuals and communities. Besides contributing to social cohesion, cultural consumption also provides feelings of belonging and personal development that translate into skills and transfer effects that helps achieving social, educational and economic inclusion. These are all elements that are necessary for the integration of minority groups, such as refugees, in their host country. Since minority groups have high risk of poverty and social exclusion, in this work, theories about these positive effects will be tested on the specific group of refugees in the Netherlands. A deductive research has been conducted and data has been gathered through distributing online surveys to refugees who have been residing in the Netherlands for more than 5 years. In this survey, data on both the cultural consumption and extent of integration has been gathered and correlational tests between these two have been performed in order to answer the main research question: “To what extent does arts and culture consumption affect the integration process of refugees in the Netherlands?”. In order to analyse the data, the dimension cultural consumption has been divided into active cultural consumption before moving to the Netherlands, passive cultural consumption before moving to the Netherlands, active cultural consumption in the Netherlands and passive cultural consumption in the Netherlands. Integration has been categorized into subjective integration, socio-economic integration and social integration. Cultural consumption has also been divided between outdoor and indoor consumption. Outdoor cultural consumption involves social interaction and takes place in public venues. Indoor cultural consumption includes the domains that require less social interaction and depend less on public venues. From the results, three main conclusions could be drawn. Firstly, this research showed that refugee integration has a stronger correlation with cultural consumption in the Netherlands than with cultural consumption before moving to the Netherlands. Secondly, the results also showed that passive cultural consumption in the Netherlands is correlated with all three forms of integration, whereas active cultural consumption in the Netherlands only correlates with two forms of integration, namely socio-economic and social integration. Third and lastly, the results showed that indoor cultural consumption is stronger correlated with integration than outdoor cultural consumption. This research could not draw conclusions about causality, however in combination with the already existing literature, the findings from this research might suggest that particular forms of cultural consumption have a positive effect on the extent of integration of refugees in the Netherlands.