How effective are integration policy reforms? The case of asylum‐related migrants
| Published date | 01 December 2022 |
| Author | Marco Pecoraro,Anita Manatschal,Eva G. T. Green,Philippe Wanner |
| Date | 01 December 2022 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12967 |
International Migration. 2022;60:95–110.
|
95
wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/imig
Received: 28 May 20 21
|
Revised: 30 Novem ber 2021
|
Accepted: 8 Decem ber 2021
DOI: 10.1111/imig.12967
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
How effective are integration policy reforms? The
case of asylum- related migrants
Marco Pecoraro1 | Anita Manatschal1 | Eva G. T. Green2 |
Philippe Wanner3
© 2022 The Auth ors. International Migration published by John W iley & Sons Ltd on behalf o f International Or ganization for
Migration
1University of Neuchâtel, Neuchatel,
Switzerland
2Universit y of Lausanne, La usanne,
Switzerland
3Universit y of Geneva, Geneva , Switzerland
Correspondence
Marco Pecorar o, University of Ne uchâtel,
Neuchatel, Switzerland.
Email: marco.pecoraro@unine.ch
Funding information
NCCR on the move, G rant/Award Number:
51NF40- 142020 and 51NF40- 182897
Abstract
The marked increase of asylum seekers arri ving in Western
Europe after 2014 has renewed debates on policy meas-
ures th at countries should put i nto place to support th eir
integration. Although implemented by many countries in
recent years, research has neglected the effect of integr a-
tion policy reform packages combining economic and social
policy measures on asyl um- related immigrants’ adj ustment
processes. Exploiting a comprehensive integration policy
reform in Switzerland, using survey data fro m the He alth
Monitoring of the Swiss Migrant Pop ulation, and regis-
tering data on the whole asylum- related population, our
difference- in- differences analyses reveal that provision-
ally a dmitted individua ls benefiting from the reform have
higher employment probability, increased income levels,
better language skills, and feel less lonely or without a
homeland relative to comp arable asylum seekers who did
not benefit from the reform. Robustness checks assessing
common pre- reform trends support our fin dings, which
highlight the importance of evalua ting entire reform pac k-
ages when assessing inte gration policies’ effectivene ss.
This is an open ac cess article und er the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which
permits us e and distributio n in any medium, provid ed the original wor k is properly cited , the use is non-comme rcial and no
modificat ions or adaptatio ns are made.
96
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PECORA RO Et Al.
INTRODUCTION
Recent humanitaria n migration flows, which reached a peak during the “long summer of migration” in 2015 (OECD,
2015), trigge red a lively pu blic, political , and scholarl y debate about how to best integrate asylum- related immi-
grants. In light of an increasingly rich literature on policies regulating immigrant integration and cultural diversity,
a growing bo dy of studies st arted assessing h ow these policies affect differen t aspects of imm igrants’ economic
inclusion, socio- cult ural adaptation, and psychological well- being.
Studies in this field can broa dly be divided into two areas. One area of research asse sses correlations between
broad integr ation policy indices measuring policies regulating immigrants’ rights and obligations in the socio-
economic, civic– politica l, or cultural– religious realms and integration of individual immigrants (e.g. Aleksynska &
Trit ah, 2013; Bilgili et al., 2015; Filindra & Mana tschal, 2020; Goodman & Wright, 2015; Pic hler, 2011; Politi et al.,
2021). While many of these studies are able to establis h links between policies and integrati on outcomes, findings
remain inconclusive. This may relate to the fact that researchers using overall integration policy indices often
ignore that thes e policies may yield heterogen eous or mixed effects o n various immigrant groups , such as asylum
seekers and undocumented or high- skill ed immigrants. Even when these ind ex- based s tudies focus on a specific
group, such as asylum- related immigrants (e.g. Slotw inski et al., 2 019), empirical evidence on policy outcomes
remains restr icted to correlational s tudies.
Ad dres sin g thi s limi tat ion , a sec ond a rea re lie s on ex per ime ntal or qua si- ex per ime nta l res earc h des ign s to ide n-
tify the causal impac t of specific integration polic y instruments or aspects of the asylum procedure on (as ylum-
related) mi grants’ adaptat ion processes (e .g., Fossati & Liechti, 2020; H ainmueller et a l., 2016; Neu reiter, 2019).
These studie s can draw stronger concl usions on the effective ness of single- policy instru ments or measures, such
as reduced waiting periods (Hain mueller et al., 2016; Hvidtfeldt et al., 2018) or optimised reset tlement procedures
(Bansak et al., 2 018). At the same tim e, these studies ofte n restrict their focus o n particular policy i nterventions.
Policy ma kers, in tur n, increasingly account for the complexit y of the integration fiel d and that different are as
of integration, su ch as language skills and labour market integration, are interdependent and mutually reinforcing
(Ager & Strang, 200 8; Harder et al., 2018), by formulating and implementing encompassing integration policy reform
packages. Exemplary of this trend is the European Union's action plan on integration and inclusion, first launched in
2016, and cur rently running f or a second peri od from 2021– 2027, which su pports polic y initiatives foste ring inclu-
sive educ ation and traini ng, improved emp loyment oppor tunities, a nd access to health a nd affordable housing.1 As a
consequence of such reforms, (asylu m- related) immigrants can be exposed to a whole n ew set of integration p olicy
measures and procedures regulating distinct dimensions of integration ranging from labour market participation to
socia l integr ation. Re search as sessing the effec tivene ss of such en compass ing polic y reforms is, howeve r, still sca rce.
The present article remedies this research gap by using an encompassing reform of the Federal Act on Asylum
and the Swiss Fed eral Act on Foreign Nationals an d Integration enacted be tween 2006– 2008 as a sou rce of exoge-
nous variation to identif y the impact of this reform package on va rious dimensions of asylum- related immigrants’
adjustment process. The empirica l setup of our stu dy allows us to compl ement existin g research in several re-
spects: Fir st, by assessing the effec tiveness of an encompassing inte gration policy reform, our s tudy accounts for
the complexity of real- world integratio n policy measures. While we cannot disentangle the effec ts of single- polic y
measures included in the reform du e to their simultaneous i mplementation, we can asse ss the so far neglected
impact of an entire reform p ackage. Second , this policy re form is clearly t argeted. We can a ccurately iden tify pol-
icy benefi ciaries, individua ls in the asylum procedure who recei ved a provisional ad mission status (F- permit) and
compare the m to a comparabl e but untreated control group, and asylum seekers (N- permi t) who are not eligible
for these polic ies. Third, our quasi- experimental differen ce- in- differences research desi gn exploits an exogenous
source of poli cy variation by compa ring integration outc omes of F- and N- per mit holders before and after policy
refo rm. The imperf ecti on of real - wo rld qua si- expe riment s notw ithst andin g, this e mpiric al str ategy h as clear infer-
ential advan tages over correlati onal studies in id entifying polic y effects (Neu reiter, 2019; Robinso n et al., 2009).
Fourth, besid es using individual survey data from the Healt h Monitoring Program of the Swiss Migrant Populatio n
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