Conséquences des migrations (pour les migrants/migrantes, les pays de départ et les pays d'accueil)

"Theoretical background and objectives Economic participation of migrants has been a major problem in many European countries for the last decades. There is overwhelming statistical evidence for the problematic labour market status of migrants, but data also show that not all migrant groups are affected to the same extent. Previous studies have revealed that differences in socio-economic integration are strongly related to ethnic origin. However, this research does not allow us to firmly establish to what extent cultural and religious factors are responsible for the differential socio-economic position of ethnic groups. Therefore, we investigate the effects of host-country orientation and cultural difference of migrants on their socio-economic integration in Germany, analysing unemployment and employment durations of male and female migrants, as well as transitions from domestic work to employment for female migrants from Turkey, Former Yugoslavia, Greece, Spain and Italy. Given the large gap in unemployment and employment rates not only between natives and migrants, but also between groups of migrants, we look at several economic, human capital and cultural factors in order to test whether migrant-specific characteristics can help to explain ethnic group differences in labour market outcomes. The migrant-specific cultural variables we investigate include host-country language proficiency, interethnic contacts, host-country media consumption, and religiosity. In the case of married female migrants, the analysis moreover takes relevant characteristics of their husbands into account, which have not received attention in earlier studies. Research design and methodology The German Socio-Economic Panel provides reliable longitudinal data, allowing us to conduct analyses over a period of nearly 20 years (1988-2006). We use duration data to analyse the hazard of labour market status transitions by estimating Cox regression models with a random frailty term to account for unobserved heterogeneity. Individual longitudinal data on employment trajectories of migrants have been combined with labour market context data and relevant human capital and cultural factors. A longitudinal approach is crucial for addressing this research question, since the relationship between socio-cultural factors such as host-country language proficiency and interethnic contacts and labour market integration is likely to be recursive. Our samples cover not only persons born outside Germany, but also their 2nd generation offspring. Findings The results indicate that although labour market transitions of migrants strongly depend on the labour market context, host-country orientation and religiosity also have a certain impact on the labour market integration of individual migrants, especially on transitions into employment of male migrants and married migrant housewives. However, while for most of our cultural variables we find significant effects on the individual level, these factors do not help to clarify the differences among the different migrant groups, which persist at a similar level even after controlling for labour market, general human capital, as well as cultural variables."

Η παρούσα έκθεση εξετάζει διεξοδικά την ένταξη μεταναστών και προσφύγων στην Ελλάδα κατά την τελευταία δεκαπενταετία, εστιάζοντας στις επιπτώσεις που είχε η οικονομική και προσφυγική κρίση. Η ανάλυση καλύπτει τέσσερις κρίσιμους τομείς: την αγορά εργασίας, την απόδοση ιθαγένειας, την εκπαίδευση και τη συμμετοχή στα κοινά. Στο πλαίσιο της παρούσας μελέτης διαπιστώνεται ότι η οικονομική κρίση έπληξε ιδιαίτερα τον μεταναστευτικό πληθυσμό, οδηγώντας σε σημαντική μείωση της απασχόλησης και αύξηση της ανεργίας. Παράλληλα, καταγράφεται μείωση του αριθμού των αδειών διαμονής, υποδηλώνοντας την αποχώρηση μεταναστών ή την απώλεια του νόμιμου καθεστώτος τους. Όσον αφορά στον τομέα της ιθαγένειας, οι πρόσφατες νομοθετικές αλλαγές και η αυστηροποίηση των κριτηρίων έχουν δυσχεράνει την απόκτησή αυτής, ιδιαίτερα για τη δεύτερη γενιά μεταναστών. Στην εκπαίδευση, τα στοιχεία από το πρόγραμμα PISA καταδεικνύουν σημαντικές διαφορές στις επιδόσεις μεταξύ γηγενών και μαθητών μεταναστευτικής καταγωγής, με τη διαφορά να διευρύνεται για τη δεύτερη γενιά μεταναστών. Αναφορικά με τη συμμετοχή στα κοινά, τονίζεται η περιορισμένη λειτουργία των Συμβουλίων Ένταξης Μεταναστών και Προσφύγων (ΣΕΜΠ) και οι προκλήσεις που αντιμετωπίζουν τα Κέντρα Ένταξης Μεταναστών (ΚΕΜ). Συμπέρασμα της παρούσας έκθεσης είναι ότι η ένταξη δεν έχει αποτελέσει προτεραιότητα της ελληνικής μεταναστευτικής πολιτικής, με τις προσπάθειες να επικεντρώνονται κυρίως στη διαχείριση των συνόρων και του προσφυγικού ζητήματος, και με την έμφαση να δίνεται στην ένταξη των προσφύγων, παραβλέποντας τις ανάγκες του μεταναστευτικού πληθυσμού. Στο πλαίσιο αυτό προτείνονται συγκεκριμένες πολιτικές παρεμβάσεις για κάθε έναν από τους τέσσερις κρίσιμους τομείς. Στην αγορά εργασίας, προτείνεται η επανένταξη μεταναστών που έχασαν το νόμιμο καθεστώς τους κατά τη διάρκεια της οικονομικής κρίσης και η καταπολέμηση της παράτυπης εργασίας. Όσον αφορά την απόδοση ιθαγένειας, συστήνεται η επανεξέταση των οικονομικών κριτηρίων και ο επανασχεδιασμός του τεστ πολιτογράφησης. Στον τομέα της εκπαίδευσης, προτείνεται η ενίσχυση της σχολικής φοίτησης για παιδιά προσφύγων και η βελτίωση των τάξεων υποδοχής, ενώ αναφορικά με τη συμμετοχή στα κοινά, συστήνεται η ενδυνάμωση των ΣΕΜΠ και των ΚΕΜ. Επιπλέον, προτείνεται η αναβάθμιση της σημασίας της ένταξης στο χαρτοφυλάκιο της μεταναστευτικής πολιτικής, η συμπερίληψη του μεταναστευτικού πληθυσμού στην Εθνική Στρατηγική για την Ένταξη, και η βελτίωση της λειτουργίας του προγράμματος HELIOS. Επιπλέον, τονίζεται η ανάγκη για μια ολοκληρωμένη προσέγγιση που θα αντιμετωπίζει τις προκλήσεις ένταξης τόσο των προσφύγων όσο και των μεταναστών, λαμβάνοντας υπόψη τις μακροπρόθεσμες επιπτώσεις στην κοινωνική συνοχή και την οικονομική ανάπτυξη της χώρας.

‘Displacing Deviance…’ is a state-of-the-art research project into transnational family practices. It examines ‘disciplinary return’ - young second-generation migrants sent ‘home’ to their countries of heritage by their parents as a disciplinary measure – a widespread practice which has not yet been the focus of direct research. Second-generation ties to the homeland are critical to issues of integration, yet understanding of second-generation transnationalism is thin. Examining ‘disiplinary return’ within the Nigerian diaspora will establish new, in-depth understanding of how migrants navigate transnational structures of opportunity and constraint through their family practice. This will shed light on the relationship between socio-economic challenges faced in ‘host’ countries, and how migrants build loyalties and identities in a transnational context. It will produce findings of relevance to policy concerns about societal challenges around multicultural integration and minority youth in the education and criminal justice sectors. The research approach is innovative, answering calls for youth-centric, multi-sited, and intergenerational research into transnational families, thus far mostly studied via first-generation migrant parents in single locations. Qualitative research with migrant parents and youth, and participatory research with migrant youth, will be undertaken in the USA, Nigeria and the UK. Supervision by a world expert, Dr Coe at Rutgers, in the outgoing phase will provide a unique training opportunity for the researcher and excellent means to build networks. Expertise gained will be transferred back into Europe in the incoming phase by working with Dr Dwyer, co-director of the Migration Research Unit (Geography Department) at UCL, a hub for migration research with Europe-wide networks. This will maximise output which advance theoretical debates around migration and transnationalism, speak to policy debates, and capture public audiences.

"Das Teilprojekt wird im Rahmen des BIM-Forschungs-Interventions-Cluster ""Solidarität im Wandel?"" durchgeführt, das durch die Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Migration, Flüchtlinge und Integration gefördert wird. Das Projekt untersucht exemplarisch am Beispiel polnischstämmiger, in Deutschland lebender Frauen, wie sich Migrant*innen aus Osteuropa für Geflüchtete engagieren, was sie dazu motiviert und welche Werteeinstellungen diesem Engagement zugrunde liegen. Diese Fragen interessieren vor allem im Kontext der Solidarisierung in Europa und der kontrastierenden Positionen osteuropäischer EU-Mitgliedstaaten, die sich gegen die Aufnahme von Geflüchteten aussprechen. Diese Positionen gehen mit einer vergleichsweise hohen Fremdenfeindlichkeit und Nationalisierung der Bevölkerung in Osteuropa einher. Bisherige Forschungsergebnisse zeigen diesbezüglich, dass Migrantinnen aus Polen häufig in der Arbeit mit Geflüchteten in Deutschland engagiert sind, obwohl sie in Polen nie aktiv gewesen sind. Diese Einstellung „erlernen“ sie vielmehr nach der Migration. Durch den Vergleich der Ergebnisse dieser Studie mit Umfragen in Polen sollen die Auswirkungen der Migration auf ehrenamtliches Engagement nun bestimmt werden. Da die Migrant*innen soziale Netzwerke in das Herkunftsland pflegen, kann eine Änderung von Werten und Einstellungen auch auf Nicht-Migrant*innen wirken. Auch durch ihr Wahlverhalten in Deutschland und Polen können Migrant*innen die Prozesse der Solidarisierung in Europa beeinflussen."

The planned study aims at the investigation of the phenomenon what is known as marriage migration (also called transnational marriage) to Germany by male Muslim migrants. By means of biographical narrative interviews with male migrants from North Africa and Turkey, the research project aims at dealing with the multidimensional and multifaceted character of male marriage migration to Germany. The subject male marriage migration can be approached from different perspectives and related aspects. In the frame of this research project, through a sampling which consists of married couples composed of a male migrant from one of the countries mentioned above and a female descendant of a migrant family with a residence permit in Germany, we want to consider this issue in all its complexity and implications regarding the debates on integration of the migrants, integration of male migrants into the labour market, gender relations and dynamics within the migrant family, and (un) chancing conceptions and visions of manhood in migration processes and the contestation/ negotiation of migrant masculinities. Regarding the studies of the last years it is noteworthy that all marriage migration studies are rather focussing on women as migrating subjects. Although it is noticed, too, that there are men as well migrating to their wives, there is no study focussing exclusively on migrating men in context of marriage. This fact may be - especially in Germany - an expression of the emotional public discussion concerning forced marriages. Nevertheless, the marriage migration of men is the desideratum of past and current marriage migration studies. This gap will be filled with the following research proposal. Our hypothesis is that women of the second or third generation of migrant families might be hoping for a realistic chance of founding a family and bringing up children through marrying a partner from the country of origin while they continue to work and remain the bread winners in the country of immigration and thus strengthen their autonomy (while their husbands are waiting for working permits and/or job opportunities and meanwhile have to take over care obligations within the family). In general, we want to show that male marriage migration can be seen both as "cause and the effect" of changing gender orders.

Despite the polarization in public and policy debates generated by the post-2014 fluxes of refugees, asylum applicants and migrants, European countries need to work out an evidence-based way to deal with migration and asylum rather than a prejudice-based one. The proposed project, SIRIUS, builds on a multi-dimensional conceptual framework in which host country or political-institutional, societal and individual-related conditions function either as enablers or as barriers to migrants’, refugees’ and asylum seekers’ integration via the labour market. SIRIUS has three main objectives: A descriptive objective: To provide systematic evidence on post-2014 migrants, refugees and asylum applicants especially women and young people and their potential for labour market employment and, more broadly, social integration. An explanatory objective: To advance knowledge on the complexity of labour market integration for post-2014 migrants, refugees and asylum applicants, and to explore their integration potential by looking into their spatial distribution (in relation to the distribution of labour demand across the labour market), while taking into account labour market characteristics and needs in different country and socio-economic contexts. A prescriptive objective: To advance a theoretical framework for an inclusive integration agenda, outlining an optimal mix of policy pathways for labour market integration including concrete steps that Member States and other European countries along with the EU can take to ensure that migrant-integration policies and the broader system of workforce-development, training, and employment programmes support new arrivals’ access to decent work opportunities and working conditions. SIRIUS has a mixed methods approach and innovative dissemination plan involving online priority action networks, film essays, festival, job fair and an applied game along with scientific and policy dialogue workshops and conferences.

1. Effective labour market policies and measures are important tools for Member States to address increasing migration flows and persistent employment gaps between migrant and national populations. According to the ad-hoc module on migration of the Labour Market Survey in 2014, roughly two thirds of third-country nationals who migrated for work to the EU had no job at the time of migrating. While unemployment rates have decreased steadily since 2014, the gap in the unemployment rate between third-country nationals and native- and EU-born remains. 2. Most Member States have dedicated labour market integration policies in place, targeting multiple migrant groups, including newly arrived, first generation third-country nationals who were the focus of this study. These policies are usually integral to Member States’ more general integration policies. 3. The driving forces behind current labour market integration policies tend to be labour shortages and the need to help newcomers into employment quickly so they become self-sufficient. The 2014- 2016 influx of migrants has encouraged many Member States to update existing policies or develop new ones. 4. Member States combine mainstream and tailored labour market integration measures. While mainstream integration measures help to ensure equal access to general (public employment) services, tailored measures can specifically address some of the disadvantages facing newly arrived third-country nationals compared to other groups, including lack of language proficiency and unfamiliarity with the new society. 5. The most common obstacles encountered by Member States in supporting third-country nationals relate to the accreditation of job qualifications/assessment of skills of those arriving from outside the EU, tackling discrimination within recruitment processes and managing varying levels of language skills in integration measures. These difficulties are more pronounced when dealing with migrant women or vulnerable groups. 6. Public sector integration measures focus primarily on the phase prior to accessing employment, including preparing for and finding a job. Based on examples provided by Member States, these relate most often to the development of (soft) skills, vocational training and qualification and career counselling. 7. The best innovative measures connected migrant and host communities or developed inter-generational bonds by bringing together people of different ages or ethnic groups, not only to ease migrants’ integration into society but also to create social cohesion. 8. Employment centres and non-governmental organisations emerge as key partners in the implementation of labour market integration measures. Most of the measures are financed through national and/or EU funds, but examples exist of privately funded measures, including new tools such as social impact bonds and sponsorship. 9. Private sector measures aim more specifically at integrating (migrant) workers into the workplace. Examples reported were mostly implemented by large companies. They focussed predominantly on training and qualification, counselling and enhancing intercultural relations in the workplace, for example through ‘buddy’ programmes, on-boarding programmes or internal company workshops on intercultural relations.

It is well documented that in most European countries migrants have lower educational attainment levels than natives. Access to education for migrant children is almost universally guaranteed in the EU, but this does not automatically equate to access to adapted education, taking into account specific needs linked to socio-economic disadvantages and linguistic challenges. Furthermore, social and ethnic school segregation constitutes a serious barrier towards access to good education for migrant children. Sending society actors seem to have only a limited impact on the educational integration of migrant children in destination countries, but initiatives like diaspora schools constitute one strategy to try and improve the educational outcomes of migrant children. The scientific literature has only given limited space to the potential role played by sending society actors for access to good education for migrant children. The Interact-project should aim to cover this field and assess whether the role played by sending society actors has not unjustly been overlooked.

Das zivilgesellschaftliche Engagement von Migranten lässt sich mit einer Perspektive auf die einzelne Gesellschaft nicht immer ausreichend erfassen. Ein interdisziplinäres und transnationales Forschungsteam will in Deutschland, Großbritannien, Polen und Spanien untersuchen, wie die Migrantenorganisationen ihre Ressourcen verteilen und wie eng verteilte Organisationseinheiten koordiniert werden. Das Interesse der Studiengruppe gilt u. a. der Frage, ob Migrantenorganisationen zu qualitativ neuen Formen der europäischen und generell der transnationalen gesellschaftlichen Integration beitragen, wenn sie die Grenzen einzelner europäischer Ankunftsstaaten überschreiten.

Migration is often part of an economically beneficial livelihood strategy for transnational families. For many of the sending countries in Southeast Asia, a growing proportion of transnational migrants, particularly in Indonesia and the Philippines, are women. Many of these female migrants are married and an unknown number leave their children behind. To date, no official data exists on the number of children under 12 years of age with one or both parents absent due to migration but anecdotal evidence suggests that growing numbers of transnational migrants from the region leave children behind. Although most migrants send remittances to left-behind kin, visits home tend to be infrequent with migrants going away for two or more years at a time. With demand from wealthy countries for domestic workers, nurses and other carers increasing as their populations age, solving care problems in rich countries may be creating a considerable ‘crisis of care’ in less developed countries. However, little is known about the multi-dimensional impacts of migration on left-behind families, particularly children. It is not known whether left-behind children themselves are more vulnerable to poor physical and mental health outcomes, or in what way, when and under what circumstances do they benefit and/or suffer from the absence of parent(s), especially when the migrant is the child’s mother. CHAMPSEA Wave 1 is the first mixed-method study aimed at filling this significant gap in existing knowledge by examining both the reconfiguration of familial support systems after parental migration and the impact on child health/well-being in Southeast Asia. CHAMPSEA Wave 2 continues to investigate the long-term impacts of parental migration on the health and well-being of children who took part in CHAMPSEA Wave 1. The follow-up study surveyed and interviewed members of the same CHAMPSEA households in Indonesia (East and West Java) and the Philippines (Bulacan and Laguna) including children in middle childhood (then 3, 4 and 5 years and are now 11, 12 and 13) and young adults (then 9, 10 and 11 and are now 17, 18 and 19). Using the same mixed-methods research design utilised in CHAMPSEA Wave 1 that capitalizes on the complementary strengths of quantitative and qualitative methods, CHAMPSEA Wave 2 collects primary data using carefully designed survey instruments in order to create a unique longitudinal data set that will allow the investigation of multiple dimensions of children’s health and well-being. Through the longitudinal examination of transnational migration/householding, familial care politics and left-behind children, CHAMPSEA Wave 2 aims to: enhance knowledge on the health and well-being of children left behind in Southeast Asia when one/both parents migrate overseas for work; examine comparative impacts of paternal/maternal migration on child health over time; and contribute to academic, community, and policy debates in the region and beyond on larger questions relating to the feminisation of ‘care migration’ and the politics of care in sending communities, the organisation of reproductive labour within transnational households, and the migration-and-development nexus.

The paper deals with the problems of integration in migration processes taking place in Azerbaijan. The paper, after defining integration, distinguishes between the problems of migrant integration in Azerbaijan and the integration of Azerbaijani migrants in other countries. In the former case we speak of refugees’ and forced migrants’ adaptation, as well as the adaptation of Azerbaijan citizens returning home from other countries. But Azerbaijan has also recently experienced an inflow of thousands of labour migrants, principally from Asian countries. The paper considers the difference in the approaches taken by the Republic’s authorities to various migrant categories. The problems of Azerbaijani emigrants, differing considerably in respect of a recipient country, are considered as well. Azerbaijani migrants, have lived and worked, sometimes for years, in Russia and CIS countries. Yet they have never lost ties with their homeland and they have been attentively following its socio-political developments with an apparent desire to return at the first signs of positive changes there. This meant an unwillingness to take on, say, Russian socio-cultural patterns or, for that matter, those of any other post-Soviet community, including local languages and local behavioral norms. Much was here conditioned by the Soviet past. The situation of Azerbaijani migrants in European countries is different: there is a language barrier, a visa regime and strict immigration rules, whereas the labour market is well provided with migrants from numerous countries. There Azerbaijani migrants were faced with a dilemma: if they chose to leave for these countries this meant leaving their country for good together with their families and they had to think of integration into local communities. For Azerbaijanis not adapted to live in a diaspora and in isolation from their homeland this posed a serious problem. Therefore, a decision to migrate to European countries was taken only by those who were self-confident, had the necessary skills and knowledge, including the relevant language skills, and by those who were forced to take such a step.

"In this project, we investigate the (sometimes unintended) consequences of policies that have been implemented to regulate immigration and to subsequently facilitate the socio-economic integration of newly arrived immigrants. (1) Networks: First, we exploit a natural experiment in Switzerland, where asylum seekers are randomly assigned to cantons. This immigration policy can be regarded as a transparent and neutral way of distributing refugees across a country to “share a burden”. At the same time, such restrictions regarding free movement within a country come with hefty consequences for the persons affected. On the one hand, a large share of jobs are found through referrals within social networks: in the US, for instance, around 30-60% (Bewley, 2007). At least since Granovetter (1973), a rich theoretical literature has rationalized this fact by modelling networks as non-market institutions that help overcome information frictions inherent in the labor market. From workers' perspective, networks grant their members preferential access to information on high-quality job openings, e.g. as in Calvo-Armengol and Jackson (2004). On the firm side, networks may help alleviate the asymmetric information problem in hiring leading potentially to a better job-match, e.g. as in Beaman and Magruder (2012). In our study, we focus on the value of social networks from the perspective of workers. Swiss asylum policy provides a unique natural experiment to study the effects of social networks on labor market outcomes. Because of the truly exogenous placement, long horizon over which the policy was in place and the large sample size, we can delve deeper into the mechanisms of how social networks affect labor market integration than previous studies have done and look at network structure beyond simply its size. Our findings will enable us to distinguish among a large set of theoretical models of the value of networks from the point of view of individual job seekers. (2) Maternity: At the same time, such immigration policies also affect the social integration of immigrants and, in our case, individual health and wellbeing. Specifically, we exploit the same unique setting to assess the relevance of information on infants' health. Random allocation of asylum seekers in Switzerland allows us to first, study the spatial differences in health care provision across the country. Further, by exploiting that French-speaking refugees are randomly placed in French- or non-French-speaking regions, we can credibly identify the language-match-health-gap, based on refugees that do not speak French as a control group and placed on either side of the language border (in a Difference in Differences framework). By extending the language to a novel (continuous) measure of language distance, we are able to factor out country of origin effects using bi-lateral regressions. A second strand of policies targets the (economic) integration of immigrants and generally of persons outside the labor market. A common approach is to provide measures, so-called Active Labor Market Programs (ALMP) that enhance a jobseeker’s employability (e.g., through additional human capital) or that keep a person close to the labor market through occupational programs. (3) Access Bias: Some measures, however, can negatively affect labor market outcomes, such as unemployment duration and post-unemployment wages, because of factors such as human capital deprivation or lock-in effects. Based on encompassing registry data that allow researchers to control for usually unobserved employability variables, we find evidence of a systematic access bias whereby caseworkers in Switzerland assign unemployed immigrants to activation measures based on what we call a competition logic that is mainly driven by and conforms to an economic rationale and the job center’s performance evaluation. From the perspective of immigrants’ labor market integration, this may be problematic because it results in an overrepresentation of immigrants in measures with little efficacy rather than in measures that could compensate for (some of) their employability disadvantages. Conversely, we find that Swiss citizens are relatively advantaged in the ability to access more measures that promote human capital enhancement (compensation logic) and that have been shown to be successful tools for labor market reintegration. It is plausible that a stronger reliance on the competition logic by caseworkers and the consequential overrepresentation of migrants in low-efficacy measures amplifies migrants’ general labor market disadvantages. (4) Priming: This rather negative stance on integration measures in the form of ALMPs is further advanced by a study where we present indications that ALMP participants are pushed into lower paying jobs compared to equally qualified non-participants. In this study on the effect of subjective beliefs on employment outcomes we find that the employment chances one year after the start of unemployment increase for both ALMP participants and non-participants when self-control and employment beliefs are high. In contrast, higher initial reservation wages increase employment chances for non-participants but substantially reduce them for ALMP participants. Previous studies have shown that beneficial effects of activation measures are often abrogated by lock-in effects, human capital deprivation, and/or negative signals to prospective employers, all of which are particularly harmful for highly skilled workers and higher-paying jobs. We argue that these detrimental effects ultimately push ALMP participants into jobs below their expected salary, where the negative consequences of activation measures are less pronounced. (5) Heterogeneity: A related aspect that is crucial from an integration perspective is whether such effects of ALMPs differ across groups, that is, whether the participation of “natives” turns out to have different consequences for their labor market performance compared to participating immigrants. In this study, we argue that effect heterogeneity between native and migrant participants can provide information about the type of discrimination that migrants face in the labor market. Using encompassing administrative data from Switzerland, we observe all registered jobseekers in 2004 and follow their monthly labor market trajectories over 10 subsequent years. Our findings are consistent with earlier evaluations of ALMPs in Switzerland and elsewhere, which find that participation effects of ALMPs are limited and sometimes even negative. However, findings show that employers value the additional productivity-related information of ALMP participation more if participants have a foreign nationality. We infer that labor market discrimination against migrants is dominated by statistical reasoning on the part of prospective employers. (6) LM-Index: Eventually, we provide a meta-analytical study where we argue that comparative assessments of integration policies fail to properly take confounding factors into account. That is, immigrant groups exposed to integration policies in different countries differ in their characteristics because immigration policies and migrants’ destination choice induce an ex-ante bias. To circumvent this limit to comparative analyses, we aspire to collect and generate data on all existing policy dimensions and subsequently provide a comparative analysis of immigrants’ labor market integration in industrialized countries."

The paper assesses opportunities and develops proposals for the integration of immigrants, as well as the adaptation of re-emigrants – long-term Ukrainian labour migrants returning home. An analysis of immigration to Ukraine has been carried out on the basis of: the 2001 population census; the current registering of migration processes; and also administrative sources of information. These sources include material from the Ministry of the Interior of Ukraine, the State Migration Service of Ukraine, the State Employment Service of the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine, the Ministry of Education and Science, Youth and Sports of Ukraine, as well as data from special sampling surveys, including those held under the author’s guidance. The paper considers three specific migration groups in Ukraine: ‘non-traditional’ immigrants; the ‘Soviet Diaspora’; and long-term labour emigrants. An assessment has been made of ‘non-traditional’ immigrants in Ukraine and the prospects for their integration. A bilateral approach was here employed – the comparison of opinions from Ukrainian citizens and from foreigners on the basis of student youth surveys (including foreign students). It has been demonstrated that the frequency of contacts between immigrants and the receiving society is an important integration mechanism. An assessment has been made of the conditions of long-term Ukrainian migrants in recipient countries with the conclusion that these conditions are not significantly different from the conditions of short- and medium-term migrants. Particular attention has been paid to the ‘Soviet Diaspora,’ thus far practically untouched by scholarly publications in Ukraine. It is shown that the Soviet Diaspora in Ukraine (and other former USSR republics) has certain features sharply distinguishing it from ‘diaspora’ in the classical sense. An attempt has been made to define the term, develop the criteria to limit the reference groups and to assess the dimensions of the Soviet Diaspora. An analysis of current Ukrainian immigration policies has been given. Policy recommendations for perfecting Ukrainian state policy in the field of immigration, immigrants’ integration and the reintegration of returning long-term Ukrainian labour migrants have been formulated as well.