Chair
Patrick Simon (France)

Membership
Nancy Foner (USA)
Dieudonné Ouedraogo (Burkina Faso)
Adela Pellegrino (Uruguay)
Victor Piché (Canada)
Brenda Yeoh (Singapore)

Council Liaison
Nico Van Nimwegen

IUSSP Secretariat Contact Person
Paul Monet

Terms of Reference

Until recently, population studies have been concerned by international migration mainly as a component of population dynamics. Demographers have not given much attention to the way migration produce changes in receiving societies. Most of the studies on the integration of migrants have been driven by sociologists, anthropologists or economists. Quantitative approaches can be found in the US and Canada, but there have been few attempts to develop systematic analyses of integration in the other parts of the world, specifically in the area of population studies. In recent years demographers have shown renewed interest in integration processes, but these studies remain marginal and an institutional agenda would stimulate research in this domain.

This scientific panel aims to produce this institutional input, by fostering comparative research on the integration of immigrants in international, national and local contexts. This requires a threefold strategy: develop and disseminate theoretical debates on assimilation, integration or incorporation of migrants as a basis for quantitative studies; elaborate new datasets and work towards the introduction of new variables in those existing to describe the relevant groups at stake in the integration process; build, assess and criticize indicators of integration in order to set comparisons through time and space (historical studies and international comparisons) and to confront them with policy making in the area of integration. Special attention will be given to the trajectories and experiences of the descendant of immigrants, i.e. the “second generation”, as generational approaches are central to most theories on integration. In this domain, population studies have built analytical and methodological tools that should be mobilized further.