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Causal evidence in the study of migration and integration is hard to come by, as these phenomena happen in a real-life environment and are practically impossible to simulate in a scientifically controlled experiment. A unique situation developed in Rotterdam which allowed for the use of experimental methods to investigate the effect of policy on recently arrived refugees’ integration. With a sharp eye, keen interest, a multidisciplinary team, and societal partners Meta van der Linden studied the situation.

What exactly are you researching?

“My research broadly deals with inclusion and exclusion of immigrants. Focusing on immigrant exclusion, I want to understand what factors feed into prejudice toward people with a migration background and how interethnic relations can be improved through social contact. Focusing on immigrant inclusion, I study the economic and socio-cultural integration of recently arrived refugees and how integration is shaped by its social and policy context. For instance, I study whether integration policy is effective or how refugee integration is influenced by the way refugees are welcomed in the receiving society.”

The EUR Bridge project you have worked on at Erasmus ľ�ϸ���Ӱ�� Rotterdam was recently completed. What did the project entail? 

“The Bridge project was prompted by the sharp increase of refugees applying for asylum in Europe since the summer of 2015. While the situation was still emerging, there was a strong need for appropriate and effective approaches to refugee integration. However, the scientific literature provided almost no causal evidence as to whether integration policies actually mattered for refugee integration. With a multidisciplinary team, we set out to answer this question by capitalizing on a natural experiment in Rotterdam in which refugees with residence permits were assigned to one of two parallel integration policies varying in scale, resources, and intensity. This means that refugees were either assigned to the Rotterdam’s own municipal integration policy, which represents a pretty typical example of how integration policy is implemented in the Netherlands, or to a new initiative by the Nieuw Thuis Rotterdam Foundation (SNTR), which was established by a philanthropist organization aiming to “contribute more and better to the integration of refugees”. SNTR took an ambitious approach using extensive financial means. They bought over 200 houses to facilitate more refugees coming into Rotterdam, provided intensive professional social guidance and job coaching, and an accelerated high-quality language program. My role in the Bridge project was to test the hypothesis that refugees subject to the intensive SNTR policy developed more rapidly on a range of economic, social and cultural integration outcomes as compared to refugees in the municipal program. To this end, we collected a 3-wave panel survey among 1200 predominantly Syrian refugees and conducted focus groups.”

And what did you conclude?

“Generally, all refugees took big steps in their integration process over time. In their first five years in Rotterdam, refugees became more self-reliant, more proficient in Dutch, identified more strongly as a citizen of Rotterdam, and more often had paid employment or volunteer work. However, the results pertaining to policy effects were quite surprising: We found no evidence that the integration process of refugees subject to intensive SNTR policy differed from that of refugees who were subject to the less intensive municipal policy. In other words, we could not show that these policy differences mattered for refugee integration.”

“So why is this? Firstly, due to the intensive nature of social guidance provided by SNTR, refugees’ own organizing capacity was rarely called upon. This led them to become more dependent on the support offered by SNTR, which is known as the lock-in effect. Secondly, interviews with SNTR staff uncovered how they viewed their target group. They often considered refugees as disadvantaged and in need of help, with little regard for their capacities and skills, which further exacerbates lock-in effects. Thirdly, we see that at some terrains there existed a mismatch between SNTR’s policy aims and individual wants and needs. SNTR was strongly focused on learning the language and applying for jobs at a later stage. However, refugees indicated that they preferred to learn the language while working to be able to practice their language skills with native speakers.”

Based on your findings so far, what do you expect to see for the early integration of recent refugees from Ukraine?

“While our conclusion based on the EUR Bridge project is that different integration policies do not really matter in terms of effect sizes, this is not to say that policies do not matter at all, as we were still to observe an immigrant group that is not subject to any kind of integration policy; a true control group. I would argue that the exceptional position in the Netherlands of Ukrainian refugees comes close to that of a control group. They are expected to return to Ukraine and therefore do not have to take the integration exam. In practice, this means that they do not lose time in an asylum seekers' center, are not subject to any restrictions on paid work, and do not have to follow intensive language lessons. The first figures on the labor market participation of Ukrainian refugees are much higher than those for previous refugee groups. This raises the question of whether this lack of integration policy might actually be beneficial for labor market integration, which we aim to explore in the coming years funded by Seed Money from the focus area Migration & Societal Change.”

How do you conduct your research?

“Before my current position at the department of Interdisciplinary Social Science, I have held different positions in political science, social psychology, and sociology. This allows me to approach my research topics through an interdisciplinary lens. Each field provides me with theoretical insights and research traditions for studying the institutional and psychological complexity of immigrant inclusion. With regards to my use of methods, I am trained in quantitative methods such as conducting experiments and working with survey data but have been venturing out to a mixed-methods approach. The mixed-methods approach proved crucial to the EUR Bridge project: Based on quantitative methods we were able to conclude that policy differences did not matter for refugee integration, however, it was based on qualitative methods that we could explain why that was the case.”

You have been involved in research projects with non-academic stakeholders such as De Verre Bergen Foundation and the municipality of Rotterdam. What are some important considerations based on your collaboration with societal partners?  

“I believe there are great advantages to working with societal partners. First, I want to stress the value of using academic research to address pressing social issues and to have an impact on the public sphere. By publishing publicly available reports and presenting our work to a wide audience of local and national level policy makers and practitioners, we were able to maximize the impact of our work and directly inform policy change. Second, hearing about the daily experiences of people in the field gives me a better understanding of what recent refugees encounter right after their arrival in the Netherlands and how integration policy is implemented on the ground. This knowledge then provides me with inspiration to formulate new hypotheses for my research. However, it has also been a learning process. There often is a different tempo between rigorous scientific research and practice that must respond to social developments and real-life concerns in the short term. Additionally, in my experience, the success of stakeholder collaborations hinges upon making clear agreements about what we as researchers can (and cannot) offer. This also means acknowledging that we cannot always provide clear-cut answers to complex questions; instead, our findings may raise more questions that warrant further research.”