Dimensions of Immigrant Integration: Comparing Outcomes and Opinions

Recent work on the dimensionality of immigrant integration outcomes in the UK (Lessard-Phillips, 2014) has shown that ethnic minorities tend to find themselves in specific multi-dimensional integration clusters, implying that integration in one dimension may correlate- negatively or positively- with integration in other dimensions. This echoes theoretical ideas put forward in the existing literature about the segmented structure of integration outcomes and potential integration trade-offs. What remains to be explored is whether such clustering is reflected in the majority’s public opinion about the important dimensions of immigrant integration. Are the majority people aware and accepting of the fact that some integration success in one dimension may not go together with integration in other areas, or are they asking the immigrants the impossible: to integrate equally on all dimensions?

We use recent survey experiments conducted in the UK to examine this issue. We presented the respondents with descriptions of immigrants with varying integration profiles, and of different origins, and asked them to (1) choose which immigrant profiles were perceived as more integrated and (2) rank the level of integration of various profiles. Based on these evaluations, we see whether there is a distinct clustering to the characteristics chosen to indicate a well/badly-integrated immigrant and compare it to clustering found in the outcomes research. This will allow us to see whether the public opinion on immigrant integration follows that of realistic, and thus clustered, immigrant integration outcomes found in previous work, or an unrealistic ‘wish-list’ approach.