Refugees and Beneficiaries of Subsidiary Protection: Measuring and Comparing Integration Policies

Abstract

AbstractIn the last decade, the study of migration policy has increasingly made use of synthetic measures, such as indicators and indexes, to compare and evaluate states’ responses to international migration. But major research gaps exist in the assessment of integration policies targeting beneficiaries of international protection (BIPs). Comprehensive, comparative data on the subject are also lacking. How can we measure and compare BIPs integration policies? And how can we evaluate their effectiveness in meeting BIPs’ integration needs? To answer these questions, this article uses the National Integration Evaluation Mechanism (NIEM), which provides a set of 173 indicators to evaluate BIP integration systems in EU member states. Following a review of the literature in the field, this paper describes NIEM’s methodology and then presents the key findings in the 2019 data for 14 EU countries. The conclusions reflect on the main contributions and limitations of the study.