Evaluating immigrants’ integration by comparing expectations to realisations of some policy-oriented events across selected countries

Immigrants’ integration is a process that develops differently across countries, depending on the characteristics of the target population and on the context. Integration can be measured with micro- or macro-approaches. There is a scarcity of literature based on a micro-approach devoted to comparing integration outcomes across countries. This paper contributes to this research field. This study aims to evaluate immigrants’ integration in relation to access to nationality, long-term residence, and family reunion. The evaluation concerns the gap between expected and realised integration and the role of context across seven European countries. Analyses are based on the Immigrant Citizens Survey (2011–2012) and the MIPEX III indicators (2011). Through a micro-approach, an integration score at the individual level, then summarised as an overall score, is suggested. MIPEX III scores are compared to integration scores to evaluate the more- or less-favourable context. Both expected and realised integration outcomes for the three events are higher in Germany, France, and Belgium than in the other countries. Only for the access to nationality the expected and realised integrations are positively correlated with context. Moreover, Germany, France, and Belgium are characterised by integration and context higher than the average, and positive net integration. Differences between expected and realised integration outcomes account for mismatched interests between immigrants and the host society. Negative net integration, in Italy and Portugal, allows us to foresee that improvements in context cannot substantially help integration outcomes here. Analyses by gender support the need for the adoption of a micro-approach in integration studies.