Concluded projects

of the Institute of Conflict Research

Indicators of Integration. About the Sustainability of the Vienna Integration Policy

Project Management:	Professor Dr. Anton Pelinka
Project Team:	Mag.a Dr.in Helga Amesberger Mag.a Dr.in Brigitte Halbmayr
Concluded in	December 2000
	German

According to scientific research as well as to public policy the integration of immigrants into the society of the immigration country is an essential precondition for a frictionless communal life. This demand is addressed to the majority population and to immigrants alike. It was the task of the study to develop indicators of integration which point out the possibilities and needs as well as the obstacles to and rejection of integration. The instrument developed should enable time series investigations and an assessment of the Vienna Integration Policy.

This requires, on the one hand, the identification of legal, socio-economic, cultural, and political conditions for integration that exist in the host society as well as of the ways in which they promote or inhibit integration. On the other hand, it requires the identification of the (positive and negative) influencing factors on the part of immigrants, arising from gender, age, duration of residence, education, etc.

We have developed a total of 67 indicators of integration. The majority of them can be subsumed under the socio-economic dimension and include indicators like education, employment, income, poverty, affluence, health, housing, family structure, etc. Indicators of participation in the host society, like social contacts and political participation, are complemented by cultural indicators. The latter include media, art, and religion. As regards the legal dimension of integration, we have summarised recent research work.

The discussion of the indicators follows an uniform scheme: to which area of integration does the indicator belong; what does the indicator measure; who has to perform the task of integration; how has the population to be differentiated; which groups have to be compared; and which data do we have for measuring integration in terms of a given indicator.

The diversity of indicators reveals that integration is a multi-dimensional policy area with partly interdependent indicators.

[GERMAN]