Compositional and Temporal Dynamics of International Migration in the EU/EFTA: A New Metric for Assessing Countries’ Immigration and Integration Policies

Abstract

In this article, I derive estimates of migrants’ expected years of residence in each of 31 countries in the European Union and European Free Trade Association each year from 2002 to 2007. A country-level measure summarizing the temporal dynamics of international migration, I compare my results against the often used compositional measure of the percent foreign born, and show that these two measures reflect different population processes. I likewise demonstrate the utility of the measure derived here as a tool to assess countries’ integration policies on long-term residence per their scores in the Migrant Integration Policy Index. Key theoretical and policy implications are discussed.