Improving Immigrants’ Integration in Host Countries

By Gianluca Grimalda, Lena Detlefsen, and Christopher Schütt

Abstract

In increasingly multi-ethnic societies, discrimination of immigrants is a challenge for social cohesion. A large-scale conjoint experiment we conducted in Germany shows that native citizens reward immigrants who (A) have high educational attainments or (B) actively engage in community work, with (B) triggering higher rewards than (A). We then recommend the establishment of volunteering partnerships where immigrants join local civil society associations and perform community work. We recommend the strengthening of active labour market policies for immigrants, the involvement of the media sector in disseminating unbiased information to the public, and actions to increase social interactions between natives and immigrants.