DICE Forum: Fostering the Integration of Immigrants

The CESifo Group, consisting of the Center for Economic Studies (CES), the ifo Institute and the CESifo GmbH (Munich Society for the Promotion of Economic Research) is a research group unique in Europe in the area of economic research. It combines the theoretically oriented economic research of the university with the empirical work of a leading Economic research institute and places this combination in an international environment.

The journal ifo DICE Report was called CESifo DICE Report until the end of 2016.Rising numbers of immigrants in many European countries are creating an even stronger incentive to integrate them both economically and socially. Countries that manage to integrate immigrants effectively can leverage several benefits including a larger workforce and the fiscal benefit resulting from increased tax payments, as well as offsetting the long-term negative impact of demographic ageing.

If countries fail to integrate their immigrants, however, they risk a surge in unemployment, a fiscal burden, a waste of talent and potentially populist voting, as well as rising crime rates.

The six articles in the Forum of this ifo DICE Report 3 2017 illustrate the factors that influence integration and provide an analysis of the policies that promote integration.

+ Sebastian Braun provides an overview of historical economic integration in West Germany and derives potential lessons for the integration of today’s refugees.

+ Eva Degler, Thomas Liebig, and Anne-Sophie Senner investigate the labour market integration of refugees in Germany. They find that many measures have already been implemented, but that stakeholder-coordination, employer-support, and legal-certainty regarding length of stay remain a challenge.

+ Olena Havrylchyk and Nadiya Ukrayinchuk conclude that an extended period of uncertain refugee status slows down the socio-economic integration of refugees by reducing the probability of investment in human capital, employment, and of them making local friends.

+ Bastien Chabé-Ferret use French survey data and find that temporary migration intentions induce less integration efforts and shift resources away from the host country, while permanent migration intentions induce greater integration efforts.

Amelie Constant studies the health immigrant paradox (HIP) and shows that, in the majority of cases, immigrants are positively self-selected and have better health than natives when they first arrive in the host country. Over time, however, their health negatively assimilates to that of natives.

+ Henrik Andersson, Heléna Berg,and Matz Dahlberg investigate the migration responses of native Swedes when confronted with increased immigration.

ESO: Information Guide: European Migration Challenges http://www.europeansources.info/record/information-guide-european-migration-challenges/

ESO: Find further information in ESO on integration of migrants in Europe http://www.europeansources.info/advSearchLink?keyword=integration%20migrants%20migration%20challenges%20&searchOption=all

---