Refugee Integration in Canada, Europe, and The United States: Perspectives From Research

943169ANN THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMYREFUGEE INTEGRATION IN CANADA, EUROPE, AND THE U.S.
research-article2020
As the number of migrants, refugees, and asylum seek-

ers have grown worldwide, intense debate has emerged
about how long and how well they integrate into host
countries. Although integration is a complex process,
realized differently by different groups at different
times, most prior studies capture, at best, disparate
parts of the process. Overcoming this limitation is a tall
task because it requires data and research that capture
how integration is both dynamic and contextual and
requires focusing on conceptual issues, emphasizing
Refugee how integration varies across spatial scales, and includ-
ing perspectives of the process through the eyes of both
Integration in scholars and practitioners. This article reviews recent
key studies about refugees in Canada, Europe, and the
Canada, United States, as a way of putting into context the schol-

arship presented in this special issue of The ANNALS.
We analyze whether and how prior studies capture
Europe, and integration as a dynamic process that unfolds in various
aspects of life, such as education, employment, and
the United health. We also consider the extent to which prior stud-
ies are shaped by long-standing divides between the
terms refugee and migrant, and integration and assimi-
States: lation, and what those divides mean for research on
refugee and migrant integration in the twenty-first
Perspectives century. Throughout, we assess the data needed for
researchers to address a wide variety of questions about
from Research refugee integration and understand the long-term con-

sequences of the ever-growing number of displaced
persons seeking refuge. This volume presents research
that uniquely enhances our understanding about the
breadth of the integration process in the United States,
Canada, and European countries.
Keywords: refugees; integration; assimilation; immigra-

By tion; immigrant; migrant; United States;
Katharine M. Donato Canada; Europe
and
Elizabeth Ferris
S ince 2010, the number of refugees and asy-

lum seekers in the world has grown dra-
matically. Although only 15 percent of these
refugees are living in developed countries,
growth in the numbers of asylum seekers arriv-
ing there has triggered a strong public response.
Between 2013 and 2017 alone, the number of
Correspondence: kmd285@georgetown.edu
DOI: 10.1177/0002716220943169
ANNALS, AAPSS, 690, July 2020 7

8 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY
refugees in Europe tripled, from 1.8 to 6.1 million (Ferris and Donato 2019). In
the United States, the number of asylum cases jumped by 74.2 percent between
2015 and 2017 (U.S. Department of Homeland Security 2019). During the
Obama administration, the number of resettled refugees admitted to the United
States rose from seventy thousand to eighty-five thousand. Subsequently, in the
Trump administration, the number declined to fifty-four thousand in 2017,
twenty-two thousand in 2018, and thirty-two thousand in 2019 (Migration Policy
Institute 2020).
These shifts have generated intense public debate and concern in developed
countries, despite findings of significant public support for immigrants as a
national source of strength (Gonzalez-Barrera and Connor 2019) and greater
support for taking in refugees than immigrants (Rasmussen and Poushter 2019).
They have also generated new theoretical and empirical research on refugee and
migrant integration. In this introductory article, we assess the scholarship as a
way of putting into context the research presented in this volume. We consider
whether and how the research captures integration as a dynamic and contextual-
ized process that unfolds in various life arenas, such as education, employment,
and health. We also consider the extent to which prior studies are influenced by
long-standing divides between the terms refugee and migrant, and integration
and assimilation, and what those divides mean for research about refugee and
migrant integration in the twenty-first century.
The studies that appear in this volume were first presented at a conference
held at Georgetown University in November 2018. Supported by the Global
Engagement Committee of Georgetown University’s Board of Regents, the con-
ference brought together invited scholars, government actors, and practitioners
to present work that addresses various aspects of refugee and migrant integration
in the United States, Europe, and Australia. In this way, we attempt to go beyond
the conventions of existing studies to incorporate insights from multiple cases,
different academic disciplines, and key national and local government actors and
practitioners. We aim to situate the research findings in this volume in its larger
context and, by doing so, consider how the integration of refugees and migrants
Katharine M. Donato is the Donald G. Herzberg Professor of International Migration and

director of the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University.
Her research interests include migration in the Americas, environmental drivers of outmigra-
tion in Bangladesh, global governance, child migration, and gender. She is the author (with
Elizabeth Ferris) of Refugees, Migration and Global Governance: Negotiating the Global
Compacts (Routledge 2019) and (with Donna Gabaccia) Gender and International Migration:
From the Slavery Era to the Global Age (Russell Sage Foundation 2015).
Elizabeth Ferris is a research professor in the Institute for the Study of International Migration
at Georgetown University. She has written extensively on humanitarian issues, including
Consequences of Chaos: Syria’s Humanitarian Crisis and the Failure to Protect, with Kemal
Kirsici (Brookings Institution Press 2016) and Refugees, Migration and Global Governance:
Negotiating the Global Compacts, with Katharine Donato (Routledge 2019).
NOTE: We are grateful for generous support of this project from Georgetown University’s
Global Engagement Committee’s Board of Regents and the Walsh School of Foreign Service.
REFUGEE INTEGRATION IN CANADA, EUROPE, AND THE U.S. 9
is dynamic and contextualized, responding to, and contingent on, the actions of
refugees and migrants, local institutions and communities, and national
governments.
Scholarship on Refugees and Migrants: Understanding

the Divide
For much of recorded history, refugees and migrants were not seen as distinct
groups (Long 2013). In the 1920s and 1930s, High Commissioners for specific
refugee groups under the authority of the League of Nations distinguished
between those fleeing conflict and those searching for labor opportunities.
Following the massive displacement resulting from World War II, the establish-
ment of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in 1950 and the
adoption of the Convention Related to the Status of Refugees in 1951 solidified
differences between refugees and migrants and created a distinct international
system for refugees. The Convention defined refugees as persons not living in
their countries of birth because persecution—related to race, religion, national-
ity, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group—forced them to
leave and fear prevented them from return. With support from 145 UN Member
States, the concept of refugee became a well-established legal category that is
backed up with 70 years of international and national jurisprudence.
In contrast, there is no consensus about the definition of a migrant, and global
leadership on migration has taken much longer to emerge (Ferris and Donato
2019). Although the organization that was to become the International
Organization for Migration (IOM) was established in 1951, it remained outside
the United Nations until 2016,1 when it became a UN-related organization.
Although it has become the largest intergovernmental agency working in migra-
tion, IOM persists without one universal legally codified definition for migrant.
The IOM’s (2019) glossary of terms is illustrative, citing various definitions for a
migrant. The first defines migrant as an umbrella term covering all types of
movement, and the second excludes from the term those fleeing wars or persecu-
tion, to acknowledge UNHCR’s domain for refugees. The third definition is one
used by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN
DESA) to facilitate global data collection. That is, an international migrant is a
person who is residing in a country that is not his or her country of birth. One
consequence of this definitional ambiguity is that scholars, policy-makers, and
sovereign states are left to define migrants as they wish. Differences in refugee
and migrant categories became institutionalized in academic arrangements in the
twentieth century (FitzGerald and Arar 2018).
Assimilation theory emerged from the Chicago School of Sociology in the
1920s and 1930s (Alba and Nee 2003) and focused on migrants who sought eco-
nomic opportunity. Since then, U.S. universities have embraced migration schol-
arship that largely emphasizes economically motivated migrants seeking better
opportunities. In contrast, the field of refugee studies first emerged in relation to
policy and practice (Black 2001). Much later, in the 1980s, the field of refugee
studies emerged in European universities, and from practitioners and other
global organizations (see Ferris 1985; Loescher and Scanlan 1986; Harrell-Bond
1986).
In recent decades, the divide has become less clear and the categories have
become conflated. Most of the world’s refugees do not flee the individualized
persecution defined in the 1951 Refugee Convention but rather from civil con-
flict and generalized violence. Despite the institutionalization of migrant and
refugee categories in twentieth-century politics and schools of knowledge
(Karatani 2005; FitzGerald and Arar 2018), there is now global recognition that
some people leave their homes in search of both protection and a better eco-
nomic life for themselves and their families. This is one type of mixed migration,
that is, complexity in the personal motives for moving such that neither protec-
tion nor economic opportunity alone leads to movement (Sharpe 2018). A second
meaning for mixed migration is embraced by both IOM and UNHCR: it is a
movement of people involving a complex composition of actors such as refugees,
asylum seekers, migrant workers, and others (U.S. Department of State 2012;
Sharpe 2018). Recent studies suggest that both types of mixed migration flows
are substantial in many parts of the world (van der Klaauw 2010; Horwood,
Forin, and Frouws 2018; Lorenzen 2018; IOM 2020). As a result, sharp distinc-
tions between categories of migrant and refugee no longer capture the complex
relationships that exist between different types of drivers of migration (Crawley
and Skleparis 2017; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
2019).
Crossing the Divide: Review of Prior Studies

The divide between the categories of refugee and migrant—even as mixed
migration is increasing—matters in our understanding of integration and assimi-
lation. As we show here, many contemporary studies follow the refugee-migrant
divide. Mapping onto this divide is the spatial segregation of the production of
such studies. Researchers from outside the United States have been the largest
producers of studies on refugee integration, and those from the United States
have been the largest producers of studies on immigrant integration. Complicating
this bifurcation are differences in meaning that various groups of scholars associ-
ate with integration and assimilation. European and Canadian researchers view
integration much more favorably than assimilation, the latter a term they associ-
ate with loss of cultural identity as foreigners become absorbed into the main-
stream of the host country. In contrast, most migration researchers in the United
States use both terms, integration and assimilation, interchangeably.
Despite these differences, we argue that a deep understanding of refugee and
migrant integration will lead to important theoretical insights and spark new
questions about these processes. Thus, in the next section, we review contempo-
rary studies about refugee and migrant integration.2 The following questions
guide our discussion of each study. How do studies define these concepts, and
how do they operationalize them? Do they focus on refugees and/or migrants,
and who are their target audiences? What types of questions have researchers
asked? What data—if any—have been brought to bear on these questions, and
perhaps more importantly, what questions have yet to be asked?
Two caveats before moving forward. First, contemporary studies about inte-
gration fall into two groups: studies that describe the process and its outcomes
using expansive portrayals of theoretical concepts and studies that employ empir-
ical data to analyze individual-level outcomes. Both sets of studies may focus on
specific domains in the integration process, such as socioeconomic status, spatial
concentration, language assimilation, and intermarriage (Waters and Jiménez
2005), or they may examine the integration of refugee groups in particular coun-
tries and/or regions of the world.
Second, our review of contemporary studies focuses on refugee integration in
host countries that are developed nations. We recognize that more than three-
quarters of refugees live in developing countries (UNHCR 2019) and that, in
theory, more globally comparative work on refugee integration is necessary (see
FitzGerald and Arar 2018).3 However, refugee integration in developing coun-
tries is, by definition, very different from the integration of refugees in developed
nations. In the latter, refugees encounter wealthy government systems and prac-
tices designed to facilitate and manage immigrant entry and integration. Such
government practices can influence refugee integration in specific ways that vary
from one country to the next (see Fasani, Frattini, and Minale [2018] as an exam-
ple below). In countries of first refuge, refugee integration focuses on a different
population of refugees, for example, those who are often from nearby or contigu-
ous countries and who UNHCR has not resettled in a third country. For example,
Bohnet and Schmitz-Pranghe (2019) ask whether Uganda’s policies that permit
refugees to work, establish businesses, and access public services facilitate their
integration. Other studies consider the obstacles to integration facing Syrian
refugees in Turkey (Simsek 2018; Erdogan 2019; Kirisci 2020). Thus, while refu-
gee integration outcomes may be broadly similar in developing and developed
host countries, these very different contexts lead to locally specific outcomes. For
these reasons, comparing refugee integration in developed and developing coun-
tries is unusually complicated and not a task we take on here.
In our analysis, we focus on refugee integration in Canada, Europe, and the
United States—long-standing receiving countries of many refugees and other
immigrants. With a growing number of foreign-born persons arriving at Canadian,
U.S., and European borders seeking asylum and refuge, robust interest about
refugee integration in wealthy host countries is sure to persist throughout the
twenty-first century.
Refugee Integration
There is a considerable literature on refugee integration, but that field of study
is much smaller than the field of immigrant integration. As one simple
illustration, a search for refugee integration in Google Scholar led to more than
480,000 results, whereas a similar search for immigrant integration yielded more
than 1.1 million results. Yet the emphasis on immigrant integration may be shift-
ing given that, since 2016, the number of listings for refugee and immigrant
integration were approximately the same, 58,000 and 60,000, respectively.
One challenge in the study of refugee integration is finding appropriate data
sources. In many countries, although counts of resettled refugees, asylum seek-
ers, and positive asylum claims exist, no detailed information about immigrant
entry (or visa) status exists to permit separating refugees from other migrants
and/or following refugees over time. If such data do exist, they are often unavail-
able to researchers (Bevelander 2016). Although some researchers have accessed
such data, most will continue to face data challenges that translate into collecting
their own data or creating proxies for refugee status for foreign-born persons
using national surveys.
A second challenge in the study of refugee integration is that refugees have
worse physical and mental health than other migrants and/or native populations.
Greater exposure to violent and traumatic experiences translates into many refu-
gees suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (Fazel et al. 2005). It also
means that refugees are less positively selected on attributes associated with
labor market success (Chin and Cortes 2015). In fact, differences in the physical
and mental health of refugees and natives partially explained employment differ-
ences between the two groups (Ruiz and Vargas Silva 2018). Yet despite these
findings, most data sources about refugees fail to include measures related to
health and integration.
Theoretical framework
About 20 years ago, the United Kingdom (UK) Home Office commissioned a
study focused on the indicators of refugee integration. At that time, it was facing
the sticky issue that although refugee integration was a national policy goal and
an objective for organizations working with refugees, refugee integration had no
preexisting operational definition. Ager and Strang’s work (2004, 2008) answered
this call by inductively developing a framework for refugee integration. They
identified various themes related to integration that were important to a variety
of stakeholders and then interviewed sixty-two refugees in two residential areas
(one in London and the second in Glasgow). The authors also used data from a
national refugee survey that included questions about a wide variety of services
received, including those related to housing, health, work, and language. From
these data, they developed an integration framework and then consulted with
potential users to verify and validate its utility.
Their framework identifies ten key domains that undergird normative under-
standings of integration, including opportunities and achievement in employ-
ment, housing, education, and health. The foundation for these domains specifies
the rights of refugees and defines the terms of citizenship, which then influence
refugee integration via three types of social connections, in the form of social
bridges, bonds, and links. These connect refugee rights and citizenship to
outcomes in the domains of work, housing, education, and health. Language and
cultural knowledge as well as safety and stability facilitate integration by reducing
the obstacles to inclusion and facilitating a two-way exchange between refugees
and natives. The framework is expansive and conceptual in scope, and in a follow-
up article,4 Strang and Ager (2010) reflect on it and add to it. Ager and Strang’s
2008 publication is a foundational piece of scholarship that many, including prac-
titioners and policy-makers, rely on to understand refugee integration.
In recent years, researchers have recommended modifications. For example,
Hynie, Korn, and Tao (2016) build on the framework to emphasize contextual
changes and the relationships between immigrants, communities, and institu-
tions. Analyzing data on the social connections of isolated refugee men from Iran
and Afghanistan in the UK, Strang and Quinn (2019) found patterns of extreme
isolation in refugees’ personal relationships with, at best, limited access to ser-
vices. These findings led them to recommend revising the framework to include
trust as a facilitator of integration. Phillimore (2020) argued that the original
framework must shift away from individual refugee outcomes to understanding
the political, relational, and temporal contexts in which integration occurs. As a
consequence, in 2019 the UK Home Office published a new framework, which
“builds on and replaces” the earlier framework (Ndofor-Tah et al. 2019, 13).5
Empirical studies related to Ager and Strang

Phillimore and Goodson (2008) undertook the first empirical assessment of
this framework. Collecting survey, interview, and focus group data in West
Midlands, a county in England, they investigated whether and how well the Ager
and Strang’s (2004) employment, housing, education, and health indicators cap-
tured refugee integration. They reported that assessment of these integration
markers was possible and that they captured how well refugees integrate. They
found, for example, that if refugees reported difficulties in securing housing or
having poor health, these conditions then influenced their ability to progress in
employment and education.
In a more comprehensive assessment of the Ager and Strang (2008) frame-
work, Puma, Lichtenstein, and Stein (2018) constructed an overall integration
score to assess the ten pathways to U.S. refugee integration.6 Described by
Bernstein et al. (2019) as an innovative data effort, Puma, Lichtenstein, and Stein
(2018) collected longitudinal survey data from 465 refugees living in Colorado.
They reported that refugees made steady progress in integration during their first
four years of U.S. residence and that social bridging interactions—such as those
between refugees and persons from other racial, ethnic and/or cultural groups—
were related to improved integration prospects. Beversluis et al. (2016) also used
Ager and Strang to develop a 25-item Refugee Integration Scale for Somali and
Banyamulenge refugees in Nairobi, Kenya.
Other studies rely on Ager and Strang’s conceptual framework to justify
measurement of specific outcomes related to integration. For example, Cheung
and Phillimore (2014) document how having access to networks and contacts
with religious and other groups are important correlates of refugee
employment in the UK. Bakker, Cheung, and Phillimore (2016) examine how
asylum support systems are related to refugee integration in the UK and the
Netherlands. In the former, asylum seekers live in housing mostly in lower-
income areas. In the latter, asylum seekers live in accommodation centers that
segregate them from the general population. Based on two nationally repre-
sentative datasets of refugees and asylum seekers, Bakker, Cheung, and
Phillimore (2016) found that, in both countries, living in these types of housing
arrangements is related to poor physical health among refugees. In the
Netherlands, living in asylum centers is also associated with poor mental health.
Thus, although designed to assist refugee integration, these housing arrange-
ments appear to worsen refugee health and threaten successful integration.
Another example is Cheung and Phillimore (2017). Analyzing data from the
2005–07 UK Survey of New Refugees, they found gender differences in a wide
range of integration outcomes. In wave 1, for example, gender differences
appeared in access to education, training, employment, self-reported general
health, difficulty in budgeting, housing, and language proficiency. However, by
wave 4, some of the differences shifted. Compared to men, women were more
likely to be in education and training programs, but less likely to be employed,
and more likely to need and receive English language training. Women’s health
was also worse than men’s by wave 4.
Economic integration of refugees

Studies published from 2000 to the present have, at times, accessed data
sources that allow for large-scale comparisons of refugees by admission category
and for the creation of proxies for refugees from foreign-born populations likely
to be refugees. Moreover, a few studies engage in longitudinal analyses and fol-
low refugees over time, thereby focusing on the process of economic integration
rather than assessing differences in outcomes at single points in time. Some
access administrative data about refugees, although findings from these studies
are often limited to specific countries and periods of time. We begin with
Bevelander’s (2016) summary of refugees’ economic trajectories in OECD coun-
tries. Immediately after arrival, refugees experience lower rates of employment
and lower income, compared to other immigrants. With longer residence in host
countries, refugees subsequently catch up economically with other migrants but
not always with the native-born.7
Studies in Europe
Since the early 2000s, studies about refugee integration have grown as access
to administrative and other sources of data has improved. Findings suggest that
having the right to protection, language proficiency, access to social networks
with labor market information, living in ethnic enclaves, and prior labor market
experience enhances refugees’ economic integration. Many European studies on
economic integration focus on Sweden, where government data sources on
immigrants are rich and accessible to researchers. Yet until very recently, prior
studies either made no mention of refugees (see Le Grand and Szulkin 2002;
Rosholm, Scott, and Husted 2006; Behtoui 2008; Lundborg 2013) or they devel-
oped a proxy for refugees from national origin and year of immigration (Edin,
Frederiksson, and Åslund 2003; Piil Damm 2009; Andersson 2015). In contrast,
Åslund and Rooth (2007) considered the effects of national and local labor mar-
ket conditions on refugees’ earnings and employment in Sweden. Using govern-
ment data about refugees and their family members who received residence in
1987 to 1991, the authors followed five refugee cohorts whose first years in
Sweden represented very different labor market conditions. When the conditions
were robust, refugees’ earnings relative to natives were higher, and refugees were
more likely to be employed. However, when conditions were poor with higher
unemployment, refugees’ earnings and employment worsened for at least 10
years.
Bevelander (2011) distinguished among refugees resettled from refugee
camps, those who sought asylum at the border and later obtained refugee status,
and relatives of refugees/other immigrants. He found the probability of employ-
ment was highest for relatives of refugees/other immigrants, followed by those
who sought asylum, and it was lowest for resettled refugees, differences that
remained after controlling for demographic and human capital characteristics.
Building on this work, Bevelander and Pendakur (2014) compared the Swedish
data with data from Canada to examine employment and earnings trajectories of
refugees and relatives of refugees/immigrants from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and
the former Yugoslavia. In Canada, refugees were more likely to be employed
than immigrants who entered to reunify with refugees/other immigrants.
However, in Sweden, the differences between these two groups were very small.
Using data that enumerated all Swedish residents in 2011 and included
detailed information about immigrant admission status, Luik, Emilsson, and
Bevelander (2018) examined men, aged 25 through 59, who were native and
foreign born entering between 1990 and 2009. They found the largest employ-
ment gap between humanitarian migrants and natives, relative to differences
between natives and family migrants and between natives and labor migrants. In
addition, among humanitarian migrants (who represented 72 percent of all
Swedish immigrants), their human capital—even at medium and high levels of
education—transferred less well into the Swedish labor market than it did for
other migrants and for natives. This finding may reflect the lower quality of edu-
cation in home countries or the weaker transferability of foreign vs. native
qualifications.
Andersson, Musterd, and Galster (2018) used national register files that offer
full coverage, longitudinal data about Iranian, Iraqi, and Somali refugees who
entered between the ages of 19 and 48, to examine the effects of coethnic neigh-
borhood concentrations on refugees’ employment prospects. In contrast to stud-
ies that use earnings as a measure of economic integration, the authors examined
how the coethnic composition of refugee neighborhoods for first permanent resi-
dence related to the probability of being employed 5 years after arrival and to the
duration of employment during the first 10 years of residence. They found that
the employment prospects of refugee women, but not men, were much lower in
neighborhoods where coethnic concentrations were higher, with the only excep-
tion being for women in neighborhoods where coethnics worked at high rates.
Thus, coethnic clustering reduced the employment prospects of refugee women
searching for work in the five years after their arrival while, at the same time,
coethnic concentrations improved the earnings of all refugees who are currently
working (Edin, Fredricksson, and Åslund 2003; Piil Damm 2009). As a final
example, Vogiazides and Mondani (2020) examined Swedish refugees’ transitions
into first employment and the effects of residential context. Using registry data
to construct longitudinal data on refugees who arrived in Sweden between 2000
and 2009 aged between 18 and 59, they found Stockholm offered more positive
labor market opportunities than Malmo, a city that has experienced rising unem-
ployment and overall poor economic prospects. In addition, originating from
Western countries increased the chance of obtaining first employment.
Researchers elsewhere in Europe have also contributed to our understanding
of refugees’ economic integration. De Vroome and van Tubergen (2010) relied
on a large sample of randomly selected refugees from Somalia, Iran, Afghanistan,
Iraq, and the former Yugoslavia living in the twelve largest cities in the
Netherlands in 2003. They found that having been educated in the Netherlands,
and having Dutch language proficiency and work experience, enhanced refugees’
economic integration. In addition, having social contacts with Dutch natives was
positively associated with refugees’ economic integration. Among the factors
negatively associated with employment and occupational status were health
problems and depression, as well as longer stays in refugee reception centers. De
Vroome and colleagues (2011), using the same survey data, reported that refu-
gees’ economic integration and having more social ties with Dutch natives were
associated with identification with the host country and that the relationship
between refugees’ economic integration in host country and national self-identi-
fication was partially mediated by refugees’ Dutch social ties.
Other studies using administrative data also offer important insights about
how national government policies and practices influence refugee integration.8
Hainmueller, Hangartner, and Lawrence (2016) used administrative panel data
that followed everyone who applied for asylum in Switzerland between 1994 and
2004 and were later granted protection within five years of arrival. For every year
that refugees waited for an asylum claim decision, the authors reported the
employment rate declined by 4 to 5 percentage points. They recommended
reducing waiting times, which would lower public expenditures and ultimately
raise refugees’ employment prospects. Martén, Hainmueller, and Hangartner
(2019) leveraged residential placement data for refugees in Switzerland, where,
by law, refugees must live in assigned areas during their first five years of resi-
dence. They found that refugees living in residential areas with many conationals
were more likely to enter the labor market, suggesting that ethnic networks
enhance rather than limit refugee integration. These findings are in line with
Auer (2017), who found enhanced economic integration of asylum seekers living
in areas of Switzerland where residents share refugees’ language skills.
To compare the labor market outcomes of refugees and other migrants across
twenty countries, Fasani, Frattini, and Minale (2018) used cross-sections of the
European Labour Force Survey (2008 and 2014), identifying refugees as those
foreign born who reported migrating for the reason of international protection
and comparing them to other migrants. They found government policies were
associated with employment differences between refugees and others. Refugees
exposed to governmental settlement policies that geographically dispersed refu-
gees upon arrival had worse labor market outcomes than other migrants.
However, exposure to policies that welcomed asylum seekers, for example, if
they arrived in a year with a greater share of successful applications, improved
integration by reducing refugee versus other migrant gaps in employment and
unemployment.
Integration in Canada
The Canadian context for refugees is different from most other countries because
of its unique sponsorship program for resettled refugees (Lanphier 2003). Canada
has two refugee programs: the In-Canada Asylum Program for asylum seekers
applying after entering the country and the Refugee and Humanitarian
Resettlement Program for refugees seeking resettlement from outside the coun-
try (Wilkinson and Garcea 2017). For the latter, resettled refugees can be govern-
ment sponsored, privately sponsored, or shared government-private sponsored.
As in other countries, however, understanding differences in integration out-
comes across refugee types is difficult because of data limitations. Most data do
not differentiate between refugees and other immigrants, or, among refugees,
between those who are government versus privately sponsored. One important
data source, the Longitudinal Immigration Government Database, offers a
wealth of detailed and longitudinal information, but access requires special per-
mission because of confidentiality policies.
In the early 2000s, Canada resettled approximately 10,000 refugees and
received an additional 10,000 to 15,000 asylum seekers each year (Wilkinson and
Garcea 2017). However, in fall 2015, the government began to expand its reset-
tlement program. By 2016, Canada had admitted an additional 25,000 Syrian
refugees. Since then, each year its resettlement targets have increased, from
27,000 in 2018 to 31,700 in 2020, with approximately two-thirds of refugees each
year being privately sponsored (UNHCR 2018). Moreover, passage of the 2001
Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) made it possible for more reset-
tlement of refugees with lower literacy and education levels, resulting in a grow-
ing number of refugees from several nations in Africa and in West Central Asia
as well as Colombians from South America (Hyndman 2011).
In a comprehensive review of prior studies’ findings, Hyndman (2011) reported
mixed economic outcomes related to refugee integration. In the early 2000s,
refugees faced barriers in securing and maintaining adequate employment, hous-
ing, education, and language (Hiebert and Sherrell 2009). Yet although they
earned less than Canadian natives, refugees fared better than other immigrants
on average, and their economic outcomes improved over time. Refugees also had
very high naturalization rates, higher than the average (85 percent) for all immi-
grants to Canada. In an updated assessment of refugee integration, Wilkinson
and Garcea (2017) analyzed data from two large Canadian surveys and found that
refugees and Canadian-born natives differed in economic outcomes, although
after 10 years, these differences disappeared. Before then, however, refugees
experienced higher unemployment and underemployment, they received lower
income, and they were more likely to receive social benefits. The two key obsta-
cles affecting how quickly refugees achieved economic parity with Canadian
natives were language competency and whether education was completed in
Canada. After 10 years, however, most refugees’ earnings had improved and sup-
ported a middle-class lifestyle.
In one very recent study, Kaida, Hou, and Stick (2019) assessed the relation-
ship between private sponsorship of refugees and economic integration in
Canada. Using Canadian administrative data since 1980, they compared the eco-
nomic outcomes of privately sponsored refugees with government-assisted refu-
gees. Their findings revealed that privately sponsored refugees have substantially
higher employment and earnings than government-assisted refugees and that
this advantage remained up to 15 years after arrival—a benefit that is especially
advantageous for refugees with less education.
Integration in the United States

Until recently, the United States led the world on refugee resettlement admis-
sions (Krogstad 2019). Despite a decades-long history of refugee resettlement, few
large-scale studies distinguished the economic integration of U.S. refugees from
other immigrants and natives, a situation related to the limits of existing data.9
To our knowledge, U.S. researchers have collected only two longitudinal data-
sets that permit an assessment of refugee integration. An early effort described
by Rumbaut (1989) was the Indochinese Health and Adaptation Research
Project; it involved longitudinal data collection in the mid-1980s from Southeast
Asian refugees in San Diego County, California. The sample included men,
women, teens, and school-aged children from five national origin groups:
Chinese-Vietnamese, Hmong, Khmer, Lao, and Vietnamese refugees.
A recent effort includes the New Immigrant Survey (NIS), the only large-
scale, comprehensive, and longitudinal study of U.S. permanent resident immi-
grants admitted from May through November 2003 and then followed over
time.10 The NIS included information on immigrant class of admission, allowing
researchers to observe refugees separately from other migrants (Chin and Cortes
2015). Using data from the first wave of the NIS and differentiating refugees
from other immigrants, Akresh (2008) and Connor (2010) examined the occupa-
tions of U.S. refugees. Akresh (2008) found a u-shaped occupational trajectory
pattern that was most dramatic for refugees, compared to other types of immi-
grants. However, after their initial downgrading, refugees had the highest likeli-
hood of upgrading relative to family-based and diversity immigrants, and it was
equal to that for employment-preference immigrants, suggesting refugees had
“the most rapid climb back up the occupational ladder” (2008, 452). Connor
(2010) found refugees had lower occupational status and earnings than nonrefu-
gees but that employment rates were comparable for both groups. Thus, U.S.
refugees found jobs after resettlement, but their jobs’ occupational status and
wages were lower than those for other immigrants.
Because the U.S. government does not offer data that contain detailed char-
acteristics and permit comparisons among refugees, other migrants, and natives,
in the last decade researchers have developed other methods. One example is
Beaman (2012), who used administrative data about resettled refugees from 2001
until 2005 obtained from the International Rescue Committee, one of the largest
U.S. resettlement agencies. She found that with more recently arrived refugees
from a refugee’s same country of origin, the likelihood of her or him being
employed declined. However, as the number of origin members with longer U.S.
residence increased, the likelihood that a refugee would be employed rose.
Since 2015, as Bernstein and DuBois (2018) document, five new studies/
reports have appeared using U.S. Census Bureau data to examine outcomes
related to the economic integration of refugees. Most use a novel method that
permits identifying likely refugees from all foreign-born persons, based on
administrative data and data from the American Community Survey (ACS), a
nationally representative sample of U.S. households.11
Capps and Newland (2015) show that refugees were disadvantaged in terms
of employment and earnings compared to other immigrants and U.S. natives. Yet
with longer U.S. residence, refugees who arrived between 1980 and 2011 became
self-supporting. That is, refugees’ earnings and use of social services with more
years of U.S. residence was comparable to the levels for natives. They also
showed that some recent refugee groups were especially disadvantaged with
respect to English language competency and education. Fix, Hooper, and Zong
(2017) examine how different state policies link to integration outcomes. They
focused on Burmese, Cuban, Iraqi, Russian, and Vietnamese refugees who
arrived between 1980 and 2013 and examined variation in socioeconomic out-
comes across four states (California, Florida, New York, and Texas), given that
the amount and type of benefits for refugees and low-income persons varied by
state. They found that national origins, rather than the states where they resided,
were more strongly associated with refugee employment, unemployment, and
income; and that, consistent with the U.S. resettlement program’s emphasis on
employment as soon as possible after arrival, refugee men had higher employ-
ment rates than U.S. native men. (Note that this refugee advantage did not hold
for women.) However, underemployment—as measured by having a bachelor’s
degree and working in a low-skilled job or being unemployed—was quite preva-
lent. Approximately 40 to 50 percent of Iraqi, Cuban, and Burmese refugees
were underemployed compared to 18 percent of U.S. natives.
Evans and Fitzgerald (2017) also examined likely refugees’ economic and
social outcomes, focusing on those who entered as children and arrived between
1990 and 2014. When refugees entered before age 15, their high school and col-
lege graduation rates were the same as those for the U.S. born. However, if they
entered after age 14, refugees’ high school and college completion rates were
lower than U.S. natives. Language difficulties and entering as unaccompanied
migrant children were associated with the poorer outcomes for older teens. Yet
refugees who arrived as children of any age had much higher school enrollment
rates than U.S.-born respondents of similar age. As a result, differences in high
school graduation rates between refugees and natives observed at ages 19 to 24
disappeared 10 years later, and differences in college completion rates between
the two groups dropped by half 10 years later. Consistent with prior studies, adult
refugees had lower levels of educational attainment and weaker English language
skills; they also had lower earnings and higher welfare use than the U.S. born. Yet
employment and earnings improved as refugees became older and enrollment in
social service programs declined. Finally, using tax data, they found that U.S.
refugees aged 18 to 45 paid on average $21,000 more in taxes than they received
in benefits over a 20-year period.
Of the two remaining studies that identified likely refugees from the ACS and
U.S. Department of State data, Kallick and Mathema (2016) examined outcomes
for Somali, Burmese, Hmong, and Bosnians likely to be refugees who arrived
between 1982 and 2014. Although the four groups experienced big wage gains after
arrival, Burmese refugees had the largest gains after 10 years of residence. The four
groups also had very high rates of English competency after 10 years of U.S. resi-
dence, and at least two-thirds of three out of the four refugee groups owned their
homes. New American Economy (2017) reported that 13 percent of likely refugees
arriving between 1975 and 2015 were entrepreneurs in 2015, compared to 11 per-
cent of other immigrants and 9 percent of natives. More than 80 percent of refu-
gees who lived in the United States for 16 to 25 years became naturalized citizens,
a rate much higher than that for nonrefugee immigrants; and, comparable to U.S.
natives, slightly more than half of refugee households owned their homes.
One of the only data sources on U.S. refugees is the Annual Survey of Refugees
(ASR), which is a nationally representative sample of approximately 1,500 refugee
households. Although the ASR is collected every year by the U.S. Office of Refugee
Resettlement, only one year—2016—is publicly available to researchers (Bernstein
and DuBois 2018). Tran and Lara-Garcia (forthcoming) use the 2016 ASR, which
contains information about refugee households admitted between 2011 and 2015.
Examining five recent refugee groups—Bhutanese, Burmese, Iraqis, Somalis, and
Cubans—they report three key findings. First, despite variation in premigration
human capital, initial socioeconomic outcomes vary very little across refugee
groups. Second, although there are two possible pathways of economic integration
through schooling and employment, most refugees in every group were employed
and working in low-wage service jobs. Third, integration programs and policies
appeared to enhance integration, given that refugees who participated in English
language training were more likely to be in school, and those who participated in
job training programs were more likely to work. Another recent study examined the
network correlates of U.S. refugees finding employment. By accessing special
administrative data that represented the universe of resettled refugees who did not
have U.S. ties before their arrival between 2005 and 2010, Dagnelie, Mayda, and
Maystadt (2019) asked whether entrepreneurs from the same origin country net-
work of U.S. refugees hired refugees. The authors found the likelihood of refugees
working 90 days after arrival was positively related to the number of business
owners in their network but negatively related to the number of those who were
employees. They suggest that the impacts of ethnic networks are positive for refu-
gees if they have ties to same country origin entrepreneurs but negative if refugees
have ties only to employees.
Social (noneconomic) integration

Refugees also socially integrate into host societies. Social integration processes
occur as refugees (and immigrants) engage with, and become included in, various
domains of social life such as language acquisition and education, citizenship,
politics and voting, and marriage behavior (Alba and Foner 2014, 2015). Although
there are many studies about refugees’ social integration, most examine out-
comes (such as whether a naturalized citizen or not) at certain points in time
rather than examine patterns in the process of social integration that eventually
lead refugees to naturalize. Once again, this is in part due to the limits of existing
data, especially the lack of longitudinal information that describes the trajectories
of refugees’ experiences (and outcomes) that ultimately lead to becoming a natu-
ralized citizen.
Along these lines, one noteworthy example of scholarship that examines out-
comes related to citizenship and political engagement is Bloemraad (2006), who
compared the political integration of Vietnamese refugees in the United States to
Portuguese immigrants in Canada. After finding big differences in naturalization
rates and political participation between the two groups, she explained them by
examining the conditions of host countries. In Canada, for example, the govern-
ment promoted citizenship and funded community groups and language instruc-
tion to facilitate political engagement and integration. By contrast, in the United
States, the government did not encourage refugees to become citizens; the rela-
tionship between the government and its citizens is more distant and results in
less political engagement by refugees (Bloemraad 2006).
Because of insufficient space, we cannot comprehensively review studies that
examine the social (noneconomic) integration of specific refugee populations in par-
ticular places and times. Studies operationalize refugees’ social integration in a variety
of ways. These include social capital and networks (Potocky-Tripodi 2004; Williams
2006); educational needs and achievement (McBrien 2005); community capital and
cohesion (Daley 2007; Wijers 2013); health behavior, psychological adaptation, and
trauma (Takeda 2008; Nelson-Peterman, Toof, and Liang 2015; Knipscheer et al.
2015; Matlin et al. 2018); discrimination (Te Lindert et al. 2008); marriage and family
formation (Grabska 2010); disability (Mirza 2012); and citizenship rights (Baban,
Ilcan, and Rygiel 2017) and acquisition (de Hoon, Vink, and Schmeets 2020). Once
again, most studies lack longitudinal data to capture the processes of social integra-
tion. In addition, future work is needed to consider how race and socioeconomic
status influence both processes and outcomes related to social integration.
Summary
Our review reveals several noteworthy findings. First, although the UK now
has a new (2019) framework of refugee integration, it elaborates on, rather than
replaces, Ager and Strang (2004). Ager and Strang’s original work in an updated
form continues to guide academics, policy-makers, and practitioners who work
on refugee integration in Europe and elsewhere. Second, recent empirical stud-
ies of refugees’ economic integration extend well beyond the small-scale studies
of the past in terms of the data used and the questions answered. In Canada, the
United States, and European countries, use of administrative and population-
level data have led to important insights about refugee outcomes related to labor
markets, social service use, and citizenship, and differences across different refu-
gee groups or between refugees and natives. Among the positive outcomes are
robust labor market outcomes for privately sponsored refugees in Canada,
including for those with low levels of education, as well as the very high rates of
naturalization among refugees in many countries. Among the negative outcomes
are the weak translation of refugees’ higher levels of education into the Swedish
labor force, negative effects of residential dispersal practices on refugees’ labor
market outcomes, and costs to asylum seekers as they wait for governments to
process asylum claims.
Third, compared to those in Canada and Europe, U.S. researchers have been
able to access limited administrative data that, when merged with population
data, permit an assessment of differences among likely refugees, other immi-
grants, and natives. The Capps and Newland (2015) method has been replicated
by others, but it carries estimation error because it does not directly observe refu-
gee status. Moreover, the only large-scale longitudinal dataset about U.S. immi-
grants was the NIS, which, as mentioned, permitted analyses of refugees but was
not funded for a third wave. In addition, although funded and collected each
year, ASR data are not publicly available to researchers. Thus, despite a mandate
embedded in the 1980 Refugee Act and amendments to compile and maintain
data on refugees (Levine, Hill, and Warren 1985), and that the United States has
resettled more refugees than any other country since 1980, U.S. researchers lack
access to detailed administrative government data that would improve under-
standing of the social and economic integration of refugees.
This situation has several important implications for future research on refu-
gees. It likely means that researchers in Europe and Canada will be at an advan-
tage with respect to generating new insights about various forms of refugee
integration, given their access to longitudinal datasets with full enumerations of
refugees and other immigrants. However, even in countries where data availabil-
ity is enhanced, analyses will likely continue to be piecemeal in what they can tell
us about refugee integration in developed countries—a situation that we hope
this review brings to light and will lead to a long-term solution.
Assimilation
The studies we have thus far reviewed focus on refugee integration. Ager and
Strang (2008) were very clear that refugee integration is not assimilation, which
they defined as refugees adapting “to become indistinguishable from the host
community” and, in the process, losing their ethnic and cultural differences as
refugees (2008, 175). Two years later, Strang and Ager (2010) noted that, in the
U.S. case, integration may be analogous to assimilation, and their preference was
integration.
Consistent with Ager and Strang (2008) and Strang and Ager (2010), UNHCR
(2002) states that refugee practitioners reject the use of assimilation because it
rests on “the notion that refugees should be expected to abandon their own cul-
ture and way of life, so as to become indistinguishable from nationals of the host
country.”11 To UNHCR, integration represents one of three durable solutions for
refugees (the other two are voluntary return and resettlement in a third country).
It understands integration as a legal principle whereby refugees attain a wide
range of rights in the host country, including citizenship. Integration is also an
economic process that establishes sustainable livelihoods and a comparable stand-
ard of living between refugees and natives and a sociocultural process of adapta-
tion and acceptance permitting refugees to contribute to the social life in a host
country without fear of discrimination (UNHCR 2005; Fielden 2008). In fact,
UNHCR never uses the term assimilation except for when it refers to the specific
text of the 1951 Convention, Article 34, which states, “Contracting States shall as
far as possible facilitate the assimilation and naturalization of refugees.”13
In this section, we briefly summarize key studies on assimilation and then
review studies that cover refugees. Similar to studies on refugee integration,
researchers who seek to understand assimilation continue to be challenged by the
limitations of existing, especially longitudinal, data. With few improvements in
detailed data about U.S. refugees and other migrants since 2000, researchers con-
tinue to experience difficulties finding the best data to answer their questions.
Theoretical framework
In recent decades, there has been substantial debate about the two theoretical
concepts that describe the process by which immigrants become part of their host
society: assimilation and integration. Social scientists in the United States first
conceptualized the former in the early twentieth century. The earliest work on
assimilation by sociologists at the Chicago School in the 1920s and 1930s empha-
sized how immigrants and natives existed in neighborhoods together, blurring
social boundaries through their contact, competition, and accommodation of each
other (Massey 2004). However, as Alba and Nee (2003) show, during the mid-
twentieth century, Gordon (1964) reworked assimilation theory to emphasize how
immigrants become part of the mainstream by losing their unique cultural attrib-
utes. Gordon (1964) maintained that this one-way assimilation is a process
whereby immigrants assimilated toward an American (largely white) majority,
considering any sign of ethnic difference to be a “disadvantage” (Zhou 1997, 977).
After decades of scholars dissociating themselves with the term, in the 1990s
a revised assimilation framework emerged. Portes and Zhou (1993) and Zhou
(1997) described a segmented process. Capturing the very different and complex
patterns of immigrant adaptation across generations, the segmented assimilation
process recognized that some immigrants and their children may experience
upward social mobility while others may experience downward mobility. This
contribution led to studies about how some groups, especially the children of
immigrants, avoided the downward path but others did not (see Portes and
Rumbaut 2001).
Also in the 1990s, Alba and Nee (1997) published a strong critique of the
assimilation ideas of Gordon (1964) and other midcentury scholars. Seen as nar-
row and problematic, Alba and Nee (1997) argued that assimilation theory—
reconfigured—is “the best way” to understand immigrant integration into the
mainstream (1997, 827). They also cited other social scientists who were similarly
arguing in favor of assimilation as a concept (Barkan 1995; Kazal 1995; Morawska
1994). Several years later, Alba and Nee (2003) published an influential book that
directly took on assimilation and reconceptualized it to be a two-way process,
whereby, as immigrants and their children enhance their economic conditions
within various institutions, such as school and work, they blur the social bounda-
ries and ethnic differences between immigrants and natives such that eventually
immigrants remake the mainstream. Alba and Nee (2003) then empirically docu-
mented that U.S. assimilation is the same now as it was 100 years ago.
Given that the two concepts, integration and assimilation, overlap, many U.S.
scholars are comfortable equating integration with assimilation.14 Yet more U.S.
researchers—together with the majority outside of the United States—use the
concept of integration to describe how refugees and other immigrants interact
with residents of host countries and their larger communities (Alba and Nee
2009; Waters and Gerstein Pineau 2015). Alba and Nee (2009, 404) note the
words of Vermeulen and Penninx (2000, 2), who suggest that European countries
initially preferred integration because it revealed “a greater degree of tolerance
and respect for ethnocultural differences.” We too prefer the term integration
but understand there are differences among us on this point.
Empirical studies15
With respect to economic assimilation, most studies differentiate refugees
from other immigrants without observing refugee status directly. Instead, they
use national origin to approximate refugee status or create synthetic cohorts (see
Borjas 2000; Cortes 2004; Chinn and Cortes 2015; Giri 2016; Birgier et al. 2016).
Some studies reveal that refugees have lower levels of income relative to eco-
nomic immigrants immediately after arrival, although refugees’ assimilation rela-
tive to U.S. natives was better than that for economic immigrants (Cortes 2004;
Giri 2016). Giri (2016) found that age at migration has big implications for the
earnings assimilation of refugees. Over the long term, among refugees who
entered at a young age, positive economic assimilation occurred quickly; but this
was not the case for refugees who arrived at older ages. Birgier et al. (2016) iden-
tified refugees as those born in Argentina and Chile who left from 1976 to 1983
and 1973 to 1985, respectively, and migrated to the United States, Israel, and
Sweden. They found that although the contexts of host countries were important
determinants of earnings, positive immigrant self-selection was more important
in predicting successful earnings assimilation, with those in the United States

having the highest level of skills.
Other studies assess the assimilation of refugees in different ways. Early work
compared Cuban political exiles to Mexican economic immigrants (Portes and
Bach 1985; Pedraza-Bailey 1985). Although both groups had similar education
and economic levels, these authors aimed to explain differences in integration
and achievement by examining the different social contexts the groups experi-
enced upon arrival. Portes and Bach (1985) argued that U.S. government support
and strong ethnic enclaves, with readily available resources related to employ-
ment opportunities, facilitated Cubans’ assimilation. Among Mexicans, of whom
many were seasonal laborers who circulated back and forth to and from the
United States, assimilative experiences were stratified by whether they entered
as circular laborers or legal migrants on their first trip. Pedraza-Bailey (1985) also
found that integration experiences were not due to individual attributes; she
argued that group differences in integration stemmed from U.S. foreign policy
interests, which facilitated integration for Cubans but not for Mexicans. Two
decades later, Eckstein (2009) added another nuanced finding by showing that
the assimilation of Cuban refugees was cohort-specific, differing between those
arriving immediately after Castro and those who arrived 20 years later.
Beginning in the mid-1990s, Portes and Zhou’s (1993) work on segmented
assimilation led to many studies about the second generation, that is, children of
immigrants and/or refugees. One clear example of the latter is Zhou and
Bankston (1998), who examined the children of Vietnamese refugees in New
Orleans. Despite the challenges that these refugees faced, their children were
strong performers in education. Zhou and Bankston (1998) attributed this
achievement to strong family and social organizations, which refugee parents
built, and which later were an important source of social capital for their chil-
dren. In contrast, the children of Hmong refugees resettled in Minnesota expe-
rienced many hardships because their families originated from a mostly
nonliterate background in Laos, and their larger community had few resources to
overcome the challenges faced in U.S. society (Hein 2006). So, too, did
Cambodian refugees in New York City (Tang 2015). As Zhou and Bankston
(2020) recently pointed out, refugees’ spatial assimilation is also important.
Although the government initially tried to place Vietnamese refugees throughout
the United States (Zhou and Bankston 1998), other factors, such as housing avail-
ability, led to the emergence of the Vietnamese refugee community in New
Orleans. Refugee resettlement agencies in Minnesota also helped to establish the
Hmong resettlement in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region (Fennelly and Palasz
2003). Since the 1990s, the contexts of reception for refugees and immigrants
have shifted, such that suburban communities have become areas of settlement
for many refugees and immigrants (Singer et al. 2008). Bankston (2000) showed
how a Lao suburban village in southwestern Louisiana emerged because of
strong employment in that area. Datel and Dingemans (2008) showed that a large
diverse refugee community in Sacramento and its suburbs was attracted to a local
economy that offered jobs to both high- and low-skilled refugees.
Morawska (2004) examined the assimilation and transnational engagements of

Russian Jewish and Cuban refugees, comparing them to five other immigrant
groups in Philadelphia. She found that all groups assimilated in different ethnic
paths. Both Russian Jewish and Cuban refugees received organized assistance
from both the U.S. government and specific local communities, and both had
limited transnational engagements with their countries of birth; although, unlike
Cubans, Russian Jews’ lack of engagement was deliberate and welcomed by
Russia itself. Finally, two books represent expansive efforts to understand the
assimilation of second-generation immigrants and, to some extent, the children
of refugees. For example, Portes and Rumbaut (2001) examined the integration
of the second generation originating from thirteen national countries in Miami
and San Diego, including those with parents from Cuba, Laos, Cambodia, and
Vietnam. Kasinitz et al. (2008) examined the assimilation of the second genera-
tion living in New York City and included the children of Russian Jewish refugees
among various national origin groups.
The Contributions in This Volume

The articles in this volume underscore the challenges of understanding refugee
and migrant integration. Researchers, practitioners and policy-makers have con-
tested the definitions of the process, and adding to these tensions are serious data
limitations that restrict what can be understood and how. The consequences of
this situation are likely to be significant for future research about refugee integra-
tion, especially in the United States.
Given predictions about violent conflict, climate change, and forced displace-
ment, we will need research to inform and strengthen policies about refugee
resettlement and short- and long-term integration in host countries. The work in
this volume enhances our understanding about the breadth and depth of refugee
and migrant integration in Canada, Europe, and the United States. Irrespective
of their specific focus, the articles all consider the implications of their findings
for refugees and migrants.
Van and colleagues do this explicitly by focusing on four Asian ethnic groups,
including Vietnamese and Indian immigrants. Although they find that Asian
immigrants to the United States are more hyper-selected, that is, they have
higher levels of socioeconomic attainment than Asians in Australia, Indian immi-
grants are the most advantaged, and Vietnamese the most disadvantaged in terms
of employment outcomes. Yet surprisingly, both groups were unable to transfer
these experiences into labor market conditions—a finding that suggests immi-
grants and refugees alike encounter penalties that are difficult to erase. Okamoto
et al. examine integration from another angle, asking how interactions that facili-
tate belonging are related to integration in host communities. Focusing on
Mexicans and Indians in Atlanta and Philadelphia, they find that not feeling
welcomed is associated with less integration, a finding they attribute to commu-
nity residents’ increasingly negative view of both refugees and migrants. Puma
et al. rely on a longitudinal survey of refugees in Colorado to show that integra-

tion significantly increases with more time in the United States and that different
pathways among various dimensions in the integration process are very important
in understanding the variation in overall integration three years after arrival.
Other articles explicitly consider how cities are involved in the integration
process. For example, Davis shows important differences in how local sanctuary
policies affect immigrants’ lives, including their feelings of fear, their access to
local services, and their interactions with law enforcement in Boston and Seattle.
Castañeda reveals that immigrant organizations in New York City, El Paso, Paris,
and Barcelona operate differently to enhance refugee and migrant integration.
Van Selm describes the development of complementary pathways that European
countries now offer to those in need of protection. Although they are small in
scope and vary in type across countries, many European countries are increas-
ingly relying on these pathways.
Given the long-standing role of religious institutions in refugee integration,
Hollenbach examines the history of Roman Catholic work to integrate immi-
grants into U.S. society. He uncovers new challenges faced by the Church to
continue its work and suggests solutions designed to reactivate the community’s
memory of its own immigrant path. Lyck-Bowen describes an innovative project
between Christian and Muslim religious institutions to enhance integration of
non-Christian refugees in Sweden. She finds that participants reported enhanced
feelings of belonging and more engagement in community activities after
participating.
In the sense-making section, Ferris examines the ways that policy-makers seek
to promote integration in eleven countries by comparing policies on three com-
ponents of integration: citizenship, language acquisition, and support for employ-
ment. Former Assistant U.S. Secretary of State Richard, with Callahan, closely
examine refugee resettlement in Utica, New York. They analyze the global and
national contexts in which decisions about refugees are made and then demon-
strate the impacts of these decisions at the local level for refugees and for the
organizations that serve them. Lopez argues that cities are on the front lines to
integrate immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers and shows how Los Angeles
has developed a set of innovative programs and policies that ensure newcomers
have the economic and social opportunities to thrive. Finally, drawing on her
work with refugees and asylum seekers in search of protection in the United
States, Schacher places U.S. family separation policies and practices in their his-
torical context, comparing restrictions on the admission of relatives of immigrants
and refugees in the 1920s with current federal government policies that restrict
admission and impede integration.
Our review of the refugee integration literature pulled together findings from
recent key studies about refugees in Canada, Europe, and the United States. Our
aim in this introduction was to reveal what has been done across these contexts
and, at the same time, to uncover important research questions for the future. Do
the mixed reasons people leave their origin countries have an impact on their
short- and long-term integration and, if so, how? What are the consequences for
policy-makers seeking to encourage integration when both refugees and migrants
arrive on their borders at the same time? Do refugees and asylum seekers require
more support to integrate into their new countries than those arriving to join
family members or to work? Do refugees differ from immigrants in their percep-
tions of belonging to host communities such that these differences affect integra-
tion outcomes, such as citizenship, employment, and language acquisition? How
much does the current global political climate, which demonizes refugees and
migrants in many countries worldwide, affect their economic and social integra-
tion? Do refugees and migrants feel pressure to fit in faster, or do they rely more
on their compatriots for support? How do governmental and nongovernmental
organizations, and refugees’ or migrants’ own social networks, respond to miti-
gate this situation and enhance integration?
To enable researchers to address these—and other policy-relevant issues—
serious efforts are required on the part of governments to make data available
and comparable. As we have shown, researchers increasingly rely on detailed
government data sources, but more data, and particularly longitudinal data, are
needed for researchers to provide evidence on how refugees and immigrants
integrate—evidence that is sorely needed to address the long-term consequences
of the ever-growing number of people on the move.
Notes
1. The International Labour Organization’s (ILO) constitution recognized migrants needing protection
and committed to protect workers and their interests when employed in countries other than their own
(Geiger and Pecoud 2010). However, after World War II, the United States rejected a plan that would have
embedded migration issues in the ILO as a new UN agency and instead funded the Provisional
Intergovernmental Committee for the Movement of Migrants from Europe (PICMME) to facilitate the
transport of migrants. The PICMME morphed into the IOM in 1989.
2. Given space limitations, we focus on key studies published since 2000. Although we cannot cite
every single study on refugee and immigrant integration, we attempt to mention as many as possible in this
introduction.
3. As FitzGerald (2019) argues, this is part of a larger global system of mobility control, whereby emi-
gration, immigration, transit migration, and refugee displacement are tightly linked.
4. See Smyth, Stewart, and Da Lomba (2010).
5. Although new, this framework extends the original rather than overhauls it. One of its authors is
Alison Strang.
6. For more information, see the final report for this project (Lichtenstein et al. 2016).
7. See also Fasani, Frattini, and Minale (2018). Bratsberg, Raaum, and Roed (2017) reported more
nuanced findings. Using Norwegian longitudinal earnings and social insurance claims data over a 25-year
period, they found that human capital accumulation in Norway’s educational system yielded refugee
employment rates comparable to natives. Yet despite early signs of improvement in refugees’ labor market
integration, after 5 to 7 years most refugees had employment outcomes well below those of comparable
natives, resulting in widening immigrant-native employment differences over time. In an earlier compara-
tive study of refugees and migrants using representative survey data in Denmark and Germany (Tranaes
and Zimmerman 2005), Constant and Schultz-Nielsen (2005) found that refugees were significantly less
likely than others to be employed in Germany, where refugees faced restrictions on the types of jobs they
could hold. There was no difference in employment between refugees and others in Denmark, which at
that time did not restrict refugees to certain jobs.
8. See Hynie (2018) for other studies that examine broad effects of policies on refugee integration.
9. Cortes (2004) and Chin and Cortes (2015) are exceptions. They do not directly observe refugee
status but use national origin and year of arrival to identify refugees.
10. The NIS was discontinued after wave 2 because of lack of funding.
11. For more information, see Capps and Newland (2015). Note that although the method permits
assessments of how likely refugees compare to other immigrants and natives, it is based on cross-sectional,
not longitudinal (or panel), data.
12. The year before UNHCR’s (2002) statement, the 2001 International Conference on the Reception
and Integration of Resettled Refugees defined integration as “a mutual, dynamic, multi-faceted and on-
going process.” From a refugee perspective, integration requires a preparedness to adapt to the lifestyle
of the host society without having to lose one’s cultural identity. From the host society perspective, it
requires a willingness for countries to be welcoming and responsive to refugees and for public institutions
to meet the needs of a diverse population (ICRIRR 2001, 37).
13. A recent example of UNHCR’s influence on the use of key concepts is in the shift from integration
to inclusion. See, for example, the title of UNHCR’s (2017) report, Working toward Inclusion: Refugees
within the National Systems of Ethiopia; and Nashed (2018).
14. For example, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences report, The Integration of Immigrants into
American Society, uses integration “as a synonym for” assimilation (Waters and Pineau 2015, 19).
15. Given space limitations, we do not consider assimilation studies that only examine immigrants. For
a comprehensive review of all studies about immigrants, refugees, and U.S. assimilation, see Waters and
Pineau (2015). In addition to the studies on U.S. refugees described below, see Gold (1992), Gurung
(2015), Besteman (2016), Chambers (2017), Gowayed (2019), and Ludwig (2019).
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Refugee Integration in Canada, Europe, and The United States: Perspectives From Research

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943169ANN THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMYREFUGEE INTEGRATION IN CANADA, EUROPE, AND THE U.S.

As the number of migrants, refugees, and asylum seek-

Canada, United States, as a way of putting into context the schol-

from Research refugee integration and understand the long-term con-

Keywords: refugees; integration; assimilation; immigra-

S ince 2010, the number of refugees and asy-

ANNALS, AAPSS, 690, July 2020 7

Katharine M. Donato is the Donald G. Herzberg Professor of International Migration and

Scholarship on Refugees and Migrants: Understanding

Crossing the Divide: Review of Prior Studies

Empirical studies related to Ager and Strang

Economic integration of refugees

Integration in the United States

Social (noneconomic) integration

in predicting successful earnings assimilation, with those in the United States

Morawska (2004) examined the assimilation and transnational engagements of

The Contributions in This Volume

et al. rely on a longitudinal survey of refugees in Colorado to show that integra-

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