3. Integration of new arrivals in Flanders
This chapter starts by examining Flanders’ civic integration programme, which is at the core of early integration efforts. The four pillars of the integration programme are discussed along with the programme’s outreach and effectiveness. Next, the chapter turns to migrants’ settlement patterns, the actors involved and the bottlenecks that currently affect the integration pathways of new arrivals. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the social assistance scheme and its function as the first stage in the integration process for recent migrants, particularly refugees.
Scope and target group of the integration programme
The programme is offered to all new arrivals but obligatory for those considered most in need of integration support
The civic integration programme (inburgeringstraject) plays a crucial role in the early integration services Flanders offers its immigrants. The training programme aims to welcome new arrivals to Flanders, help them learn Dutch, find a job, and – in the longer term – achieve social and economic self-sustainability. The programme’s target group consists of all adult newcomers with valid and permanent residency perspective; some are obliged to participate in the programme, while others are only entitled and not obliged. Table 3.1 provides a detailed overview. In broad terms, non-EU family and humanitarian migrants are obliged to participate in the programme, whereas it is optional for immigrants from EU and European Free Trade Agreement (EFTA) countries and their family members, non-EU migrants who come for work and study reasons, and long-term residents of EU and EFTA countries. In offering comprehensive integration support to all permanent migrants, Flanders stands apart from many other European OECD countries. In Sweden and Norway for example, the public provision of integration services – bundled into a comprehensive programme as in Flanders – tends to be reserved for refugees and their accompanying families (OECD, 2023[1]).
Since March 2022, asylum seekers can no longer take up the civic integration programme in Flanders. Before, they were entitled to participate four months after they lodged their asylum application. Asylum seekers can still enrol in early language modules while staying in reception centres. Integration agencies also help them establish which language course best suits their learning capacities (see below). Yet, four months after their asylum application, asylum seekers are allowed to enter the labour market (see Box 3.1). According to the Flemish social partners, the exclusion from the integration track takes away the necessary guidance to do so (Social and Economic Council of Flanders, 2021[2]; Flemish Educational Council, 2021[3]). The reform also goes against one of the recommendations of a recent study on the literacy of asylum seekers in Belgium, to provide low-literate asylum seekers with more guidance in acquiring the basic skills needed to actively engage in the host society (Hooft et al., 2020[4]). It remains to be seen what role Fedasil and its partners will play in the framework of the recent Flemish action plan on the activation of asylum seekers (see Box 3.1).
One feature of asylum legislation in many OECD countries is to impose employment bans that prevent asylum seekers from entering the local labour market for a certain waiting period during the application process. Since December 2015, asylum seekers in Flanders are allowed to take a job four months after lodging their asylum application (as opposed to six months previously). Following this reform, Flanders (Belgium) is now among the European OECD countries with the shortest employment ban for asylum applicants (Greece, Norway, Portugal and Sweden allow immediate access to their labour markets). Since 1 January 2019, asylum seekers who have not received a decision on their application after four months are automatically entitled to work, this condition being notified on their residence permit.
Still, accessing the labour market is still quite far from getting a job. According to a recent study for Flanders by Vansteenkiste and De Graeve (2018[5]), 55% of the asylum seekers who were authorised to enter work registered with the Flemish PES, and of those who registered with the PES, 12% found work within 6 months, and 24% within 12 months. Apart from language training, there are no integration measures that specifically target asylum seekers in Flanders. However, in December 2021, the State Secretary for Asylum and Migration and the Flemish Minister of Employment launched an action plan called “Asylum seekers looking for a match” (Asielzoekers zoekt match), with the aim to bridge the gap between asylum seekers and the Flemish labour market. This action plan, developed by the federal reception agency Fedasil, is focused on competence building (though language training and vocation training), elimination of administrative barriers (e.g. the long procedure for recognition of foreign qualifications) and activation towards employment or voluntary work. The action plan is still an early stage; Fedasil has now issued project calls on activation of asylum seekers for the period 2022-23.
Source: https://www.fedasil.be/sites/default/files/projectoproep_activering_2022-2023.pdf.
Registration rates have declined for new arrivals entitled to participate
The civic integration trajectory starts after immigrants obtain a residence permit and are registered in a municipality. At that point, they can schedule an appointment with the integration agencies in one of the 64 contact offices. To increase awareness, the integration agencies send out invitation letters to new arrivals who did not schedule such an appointment on their initiative. Every month an extraction is made from the Belgian National Register with the names and addresses of newly arrived migrants in Flanders of the past month. Over the 2011-21 period, an average of 33 000 newly arrived adult migrants were extracted from the National Register each year and consequently became the target population of Flanders’ civic integration programme.1 Immigrants with a civic integration obligation must sign up within three months after receiving the invitation. Those who fail to comply can be sanctioned with an administrative fine and – in some cases – they can lose their social benefits (see below).
The civic integration programme reaches some migrant groups more than others. Focussing on the 2015-19 settlement cohort, more than seven in ten new arrivals from the obliged group signed up with an integration agency in the three months after arrival. This share gradually rose to more than nine in ten (see Figure 3.1). In contrast, less than two in ten new arrivals from the entitled group registered after three months and, in the long term, approximately three in ten were reached. Within the entitled group, there are significant differences by category of entry. The programme reaches a relatively large share of entitled family migrants (80%, mostly family migrants to EU citizens), humanitarian migrants2 (67%, mostly asylum seekers), and non-EU labour migrants (53%). In contrast, registration rates are much lower among EU citizens (22%) and non-EU migrants coming for study purposes (16%).
On average, 14% of the new arrivals who settled in Flanders between 2015 and 2019 registered with an integration agency on their own initiative – before being extracted from the National Register. More than half of them did so within three months, 21% within 3 to 12 months, and 12% after more than one year. Late registrations are much more common among immigrants entitled to take up civic integration, particularly among non-EU migrants who migrated for work reasons.
Note: Permanent migrants (aged 18 to 59 at arrival) who settled in Flanders between 2015 and 2019. People with Dutch nationality at birth are excluded. Because immigrants can change target groups during their integration trajectory due to a change in their residence status, their last known status is used. For immigrants with an unknown last status, the first-known status is used. The cumulative incidence, or failure function, is computed as 1-St from the life table using the Kaplan-Meier approach.
Source: OECD Secretariat calculations based on Crossroads Bank for Civic Integration data.
According to previous evaluations, encouraging immigrants from the entitled group to take up integration training is a longstanding challenge (De Cuyper, Lambert and Pauwels, 2010[6]). However, the programme has lost even more of its appeal among “entitled immigrants” in recent years. A closer analysis reveals that primarily EU immigrants seem to have lost interest in the programme. A likely explanation is that civic integration has become more demanding in recent years, amongst others by raising the target level of Dutch from A1 to A2 (for further discussion, see Chapter 2). The more recent reforms, including a financial contribution for integration participants, standardised tests and two additional civic integration pillars, will possibly further erode the eagerness of new arrivals to voluntarily take up integration training (Social and Economic Council of Flanders, 2021[2]; Flemish Educational Council, 2021[3]).
This concern has moved the Flemish Government to exempt from payment several migrant groups. These include “entitled immigrants” who enrol in language training at a Centre for Adult Basic Education, receive social assistance benefits, actively seek work and pursue employment-related training, or reside in a municipality in Brussels. The Agency for Integration and Civic Integration’s most recent annual report also mentions that activities were devised to strengthen the programme’s outreach. However, details and results of these actions are not specified (Agency for Integration and Civic Integration, 2022[7]).
Integration participants have very different integration needs
Integration participants are a diverse group in terms of educational attainment and the languages they speak, bringing a wide range of integration service needs.
A significant share of the migrants who came for humanitarian reasons had only basic qualifications at arrival. Many of them have been obliged to leave school early in their origin country or were educated in much less advanced systems than the Flemish education system. Based on data from the Crossroads Bank for Civic Integration, more than four in ten humanitarian migrants who settled in Flanders between 2011 and 2021 started integration training with just primary or lower secondary education (see Table 3.2). Within the group of humanitarian migrants, there are significant differences by country of origin, with the proportion of low-educated individuals being 78% for Somalians, 69% for Afghans, 42% for Syrians and 36% for Iraqis. A recent study on low literacy among adults in asylum reception in Belgium shows that one in ten adult asylum seekers cannot read or write. Moreover, four in ten do not have sufficient skills to understand, process and use written texts at the primary school level (Hooft et al., 2020[4]).
At the same time, close to one in five humanitarian migrants had a tertiary education degree when they settled in Flanders and thus had very different integration needs. Notably, over the last decade, Flanders has received increasing numbers of highly educated asylum seekers and refugees. Data from the Crossroads Bank for Civic Integration show that the proportion of humanitarian migrants who were highly educated at arrival increased from 14% in 2011 to 21% in 2021.
Family migrants from the 2011-21 settlement cohort had higher education levels at arrival than refugees, but levels were still well below the educational attainment of the native-born. Here too, significant differences by country of origin play out, with Moroccan and Turkish immigrants having lower levels of education than Indian immigrants. In contrast, non-EU migrants who arrived for work and study reasons stand out with high levels of education at arrival (72% and 85% were highly educated, respectively). Finally, more than half of the EU citizens were medium-educated, which is a higher share than for the other migrant groups and the native-born.
Immigrants who lack basic literacy skills are likely to struggle to find work, learn Dutch and navigate their way in Flemish society. A sound mastery of the basic skills, literacy, numeracy, and problem solving, is also a necessary foundation upon which to build the other more advanced skills – such as language and job search skills – necessary for effective integration. Educational disparities should therefore be addressed early and effectively in the integration process to equip all new arrivals with the basic skills needed to be functional in the labour market and society. If not, the efficiency of further integration measures is likely compromised.
The diversity of the languages spoken by new arrivals and the degree to which migrant languages differ from the official host-country language is another critical factor determining the potential for language training and the length of time the integration pathway will take. According to data from the 2021 Ad Hoc Module of the European Labour Force Survey, Flanders had among the highest shares (78%) of non-EU immigrants who, before migrating, had hardly or no proficiency in the host-country language. Only in Finland (85%), Sweden (84%) and Norway (82%), this share stood higher.
Immigrants born in the Netherlands accounted for close to 16% of the foreign-born in Flanders in 2020. Therefore, it is no surprise that the average linguistic difference between the Dutch language and the mother-tongue of the immigrant community – as calculated according to the Language Distance Index (see OECD (2018[8]) for further discussion) – does not stand out as particularly large in international comparison. However, the language distance differs significantly across migrant groups. Aside from immigrants from the Netherlands, most new arrivals in Flanders come from very different language families. Among integration participants who settled in Flanders between 2011 and 2021, the most common “mother tongues” were Arabic (20%), Romanian (6%), Polish (5%), Turkish (5%), Spanish (4%), Portuguese (3%), Pashtu (3%), Bulgarian (3%) and Berber (3%). Therefore, if the analysis focuses on the interquartile range of the Language Distance Index rather than the average, Flanders has among the most extensive linguistic distances of the surveyed countries. Because of the greater distance between the languages spoken by immigrants and the Dutch language, language training needs in Flanders are more extensive and long-term than in many other European OECD countries.
Content of the integration programme
The programme is multifaceted and tailored to individual needs
To respond to the diverse integration needs among the population of new arrivals, the civic integration programme in Flanders builds upon three primary tools: the initial assessment, the integration contract, and integration training (see Figure 3.2). The programme aims to endow each newcomer with the skills and knowledge required for integration into Flemish society and working life through the provision of sequenced integration measures adapted to individual skills and circumstances.
The starting point of the civic integration track is the initial assessment undertaken at the integration agency, ideally during the participant’s first appointment. The initial assessment consists of an interview with the newcomer on the study and work experience, current circumstances, and career aspirations, and – depending on the participants’ profile – tests of reading and writing, Dutch language skills, and cognitive skills (see below). The interview plays the role of identifying individual needs and forms the basis of the following integration activities. Tests are employed to identify the current language ability and the likely speed of language acquisition. On average, the intake takes around one hour. If the newcomer does not yet speak sufficient Dutch, either the mother tongue, a contact language or the services of an interpreter are used.
During their first appointment, participants meet their integration counsellor (trajectbegeleider), who provides them with guidance on everything related to the integration track. The counsellor keeps an overview of the participant’s basic competencies, skills and network and is responsible for the programme’s administrative follow-up and ensuring the participant attends the courses. The counsellor also connects the participant with the appropriate institutions or organisations for questions that call for special guidance (e.g. education for the children, legal or psychological help, suitable housing). Furthermore, counsellors can assist participants with the recognition of foreign credentials by providing accessible information on the procedure, offering support regarding the completion of an application file, and acting as intermediaries with the diploma recognition service (for further discussion, see Chapter 4). During the programme, the counsellor’s role is gradually decreased. An often-mentioned challenge is that integration counsellors have high caseloads (on average, 125 clients), which can result in a lack of time to provide specific personal advice or build a relationship of trust.
Following the intake, the counsellor and the participant draw up a personalised integration contract, which sets out a roadmap of integration activities to prepare the newcomer for the Flemish labour market and society. After signing an integration contract, participants should begin their integration training, which consists of four pillars: Dutch as a second language (Dutch L2) courses, a civic orientation course, a trajectory to work, and – from January 2023 onwards – a network and participation trajectory (see Figure 3.2). In most cases, these activities occupy participants full-time (40 hours per week), with the relative weight accounted for by each activity varying with the participant’s needs. The contract comprises all pillars and exemptions of the integration track and the estimated total duration, based primarily on the intended language learning trajectory. For “quick learners”, the average programme duration is projected at 12 months, whereas for “slow learners”, it is projected at 36 months (see below). A deferral or suspension of the programme can be granted if participants cannot follow integration training due to work, study, medical, or personal reasons.
The integration contract states the integration goals and obligations. New arrivals with a civic integration obligation must sign this contract and can be sanctioned with an administrative fine if they fail to comply with the contract terms. Immigrants entitled to undertake integration training have to sign a contract if they want to take up civic integration but under the revised Integration Act, they are no longer sanctioned in case of non-compliance. Since March 2022, the integration contract also includes a provision on fundamental rights and obligations to be respected in Flemish society. By signing the integration contract, immigrants declare to have been informed on these rights and obligations and to be willing to learn about them and respect them.
There are no benefits directly linked to participation in the civic integration programme in Flanders, as is the case in the Nordic countries, for example. However, immigrants who are unable to obtain sufficient means of livelihood through the labour market or through income sources obtained by other household members, can apply for a social assistance benefit (see below).
Source: OECD Secretariat adapted from the Agency for Integration and Civic Integration website, https://www.integratie-inburgering.be/nl/wat-kunnen-we-voor-jou-doen/inburgeringstraject-en-cursus-maatschappelijke-orientatie/inburgeringstraject-0.
Dutch language training is a critical component of integration training
Dutch L2 training (Nederlands als tweede taal, NT2) is the first pillar of the civic integration programme and represents the bulk of Flemish Government expenditures on immigrant integration. As Flanders mainstreams the supply of language courses and fully integrates them into the civic integration programme, participation in language training among immigrant adults is relatively high in international comparison. According to the snapshot provided by the 2021 Ad Hoc Module of the European Labour Force Survey, close to seven in ten non-EU immigrants residing in Flanders had participated in a Dutch language course after migration. Of the countries shown in Figure 3.3, only Scandinavian countries (except Sweden) and Luxembourg achieved a higher proportion.
Note: Non-EU-born population aged 15 to 74. Data are ordered according to the sum of “Yes (general)” and “Yes (work-specific)”.
Source: EU-LFS ad hoc module 2021 (Eurostat); Flanders: national LFS.
The integration training aims to provide new arrivals with “basic” Dutch language skills. In practice, “basic” refers to CEFR level A2. Countries throughout the OECD are increasingly attempting to offer language instruction that is adapted to prior education or measured language aptitude (OECD, 2021[9]). In Flanders, a language counsellor employed by the integration agencies manages the participants’ language learning trajectory. During a co-ordinated intake, the counsellor assesses the newcomer’s educational attainment, acquired language skills, learning aspirations and personal situation. Depending on the profile of the participant, a cognitive skills test, reading and writing test and an entry test are taken (see Figure 3.4). The cognitive skills test (COVAAR) helps to assess language learning ability. If there are doubts about the participant’s literacy, the counsellor takes a reading and writing test. Finally, testing of acquired Dutch language competencies is done via an entry test (NIVO). The initial assessment results in formal advice and subsequent referral to a language training provider. The advice is shaped by the following parameters (ranked by weight in the decision process): literacy, level of education, cognitive skills test score, knowledge of other languages, and personal factors such as motivation. The counsellors’ advice is binding for the course entry level and the learning speed, but the participant is free to register with another provider than the one suggested.
Note: The number of teaching hours corresponds to level A2 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.
Source: OECD Secretariat adapted from the Dutch as a second language framework agreemen, https://www.integratie-inburgering.be/nl/wat-kunnen-we-voor-jou-doen/ondersteuning-voor-je-organisatie-of-lokaal-bestuur/publicaties/afsprakenkader-nt2.
The Centres for Adult Education (CAE) and Centres for Adult Basic Education (CABE) provide formal Dutch L2 training. These language providers have broadly similar learning objectives and funding structures but differ in the pace and format of instruction. Integration agencies generally refer “slow language learners” to the CABE, where a standard A2-level course with oral and written skills consists of 440 teaching hours. Illiterate or low-literate participants can follow language training at the CABE in two versions: 1 140 hours to acquire oral skills up to level A2 and learn to read and write at level A1, or 600 hours to acquire oral skills up to level A2 in an adapted version and limited self-reliance for written skills. “Fast language learners”, on the other hand, are generally sent to the CAE, where they can follow a standard trajectory of 240 hours, an extended trajectory of 360 hours, or a shortened trajectory of 160 hours to achieve level A2. For participants who are literate in a script other than Latin, the CABE and the CAE additionally offer a Latin script module of 180 hours and 40 hours, respectively, after which participants join regular Dutch language training. Finally, university language centres offer higher-speed courses of 160 hours specifically designed for new arrivals with higher educational aspirations who meet university admission requirements.
In 2021, one in five integration participants was referred to the CABE. Seven in ten were advised to complete the standard 480-hour training, whereas three in ten were advised to complete the Alpha track designed for low-literates or illiterates (see Figure 3.5). Four in five participants were directed towards the CAE, where the majority (59%) was advised to follow the standard 240-hour track, whereas 11% and 30% were recommended to take up the extended and the shortened version, respectively. Over the past decade, integration agencies have increasingly directed participants towards faster language learning tracks, which in turn had a considerable effect on the average duration of the civic integration programme (see below). This trend is partially explained by new arrivals being higher educated than their predecessors (the share of highly educated new arrivals increased from 23% for the 2011 cohort to 36% for the 2021 cohort). However, as a comparable pattern is observed across educational groups, a shift in the integration agencies’ policy on Dutch L2 advice (and the choices made by language counsellors) appears to be a more significant factor.
Note: Permanent migrants (aged 18 to 59 at arrival) who settled in Flanders between 2011 and 2021 and registered with an integration agency. “CABE” refers to Centres for Adult Basic Education; “CAE” refers to Centres for Adult Education”. “CABE, alpha”: 600-1 140 hours; “CABE, standard”: 440 hours; “CAE, extended”: 360 hours; “CAE, standard”: 240 hours; “CAE, shortened”: 160 hours.
Source: OECD Secretariat calculations based on Crossroads Bank for Civic Integration data.
While language training in the civic integration programme is primarily formal and organised by educational institutions recognised by the Flemish Government, a range of smaller (sometimes private) initiatives additionally accommodate informal language learning. Research shows that language learning can be significantly improved when language is taught in a practical way by pairing it with real-world activities (OECD, 2021[9]). Notably, each Flemish province organises “conversation tables” linking non-Dutch speakers with local citizens to practice Dutch in a social setting. All these courses are easy to find online (https://www.nederlandsoefenen.be/), even though the information is often only available in Dutch. Therefore, integration agencies and local municipalities often assist prospective learners in finding a suitable informal learning opportunity, based on their acquired Dutch language skills and education level.
Civic orientation as the second pillar of the integration programme
The second pillar of the integration training consists of a civic orientation course (Maatschappelijke oriëntatie, MO) on the know-how and skills needed to engage in Flemish society, as well as the values and standards of Flemish society. The 60-hour course is taught by trained instructors from the integration agencies. The content of the course is standardised, but teachers have some freedom to tailor their course towards individual learning needs. Course teachers generally aim for participants to actively contribute to the lessons by finding solutions to day-to-day situations, such as the use of public transport and the search for medical assistance or educational facilities, both individually and by working together with other course participants. Notably, participants can follow the lessons in their mother tongue or in a contact language, and if no contact language is available, an interpreter is provided. In 2021, the Agency for Integration and Civic Integration organised the course in 36 different languages. Most of the participants took classes in Arabic (21%), English (18%), or French (11%), whereas only 2% followed the classes in Dutch (Agency for Integration and Civic Integration, 2022[7]). Courses are offered across the Flemish region and can take place during weekdays, evenings, and weekends to fit the participant’s schedule. The complexity of the organisation of civic orientation and the undersupply of classes in the past years have forced some newcomers to register for a course that was not ideal for them or wait until a suitable course became available. However, in recent years, integration agencies managed to significantly shorten the waiting list for civic orientation, not in the least due to the expansion of digital learning opportunities (see Box 3.2) (Agency for Integration and Civic Integration, 2022[7]).
The COVID-19 pandemic has clearly accelerated the adoption of digital working arrangements and practices in the civic integration programme. Before 2020, civic orientation and language courses were primarily taught in classrooms, but since the pandemic participants with the necessary digital skills have the option to complete the civic orientation course online or in a hybrid fashion. While those who lack the necessary digital skills can still participate in physical courses, integration agencies aim to turn digital training into the norm. Digital language learning has also received renewed attention in Flanders, and its quality has significantly improved throughout and following the COVID-19 pandemic. While most adult education centres have switched back to classroom instruction when it was feasible to do so, university language centres remain proficient users of digital tools for more advanced language training.
Digitalisation is undoubtedly a valuable tool for increasing the accessibility of training for persons who, due to work, studies or personal reasons, find it challenging to attend physical courses (De Paepe, Zhu and Depryck, 2018[10]). Digital learning has also significantly shortened course waiting periods and improved the possibilities for self-study. At the same time, policy makers must be aware of the potential barriers to the use of such tools to avoid pitfalls in implementation, particularly for (digitally) illiterate newcomers (OECD, 2021[9]). A study on digital literacy among new arrivals in Flanders shows that the low-literate face many hurdles to integration. Digitalisation could add another one, especially if changes are implemented too quickly (Droogmans, Jordens and Maes, 2016[11]). Notably, having little or no digital skills has now developed into the main reason why newcomers start their civic orientation courses late (Agency for Integration and Civic Integration, 2022[7]).
With these challenges in mind, the Flemish Minister of Home Affairs spent EUR 15 million on digitalisation in integration and civic integration in 2021. With this funding, the integration agencies established Digital units, which put up various programmes and activities targeted at expanding the availability of digital services and enhancing the digital skills of integration participants. The integration agencies also incorporated a digital skills evaluation into their intake procedure. Participants who lacked fundamental digital literacy could enrol in a fast-track IT course offered by the Agency or external training providers. The 12-hour course (three modules of four hours) is designed to make the digital civic orientation course more accessible. It teaches students how to use a Chromebook, take part in online classes, and receive, process, and return digital information. In 2021, the Agency for Integration and Civic Integration organised around 50 IT courses for 277 participants. Additionally, the Agency lent out 4 720 Chromebooks in 2021. However, first results show that only about half of the participants transitioned to the digital orientation course after finishing the IT course (Agency for Integration and Civic Integration, 2022[7]), implying that continued efforts are needed to increase the digital skills of integration participants.
Note: Similarly, Atlas (city of Antwerp) set up the “Digilabo” project. In 2021, 2 805 students learned how to take online orientation courses via Zoom and Google Classroom during 215 “digisessions”. In addition, 234 participants learned how to use various mobile applications during individual sessions. 2 286 participants borrowed a tablet from Digilabo to follow an online civic orientation course.
Source: OECD field mission; Agency for Integration and Civic Integration (2022[7]); https://2021.atlas-antwerpen.be/verhaal/digitaal-e-inclusie.
Recent reforms have made integration training more demanding
In an effort to address some of the shortcomings of the civic integration programme, the Flemish integration system is currently undergoing substantial changes in the way it is implemented.
From September 2023 onwards, language and civic orientation training in Flanders will no longer be free of charge. Participants will have to pay a fee of EUR 90 each for the civic orientation course and test and the Dutch L2 course and test (EUR 360 in total). Among the group newcomers entitled to participate in the training, some are exempt from payment, namely those who: attend language courses at the CABE, receive social assistance benefits, actively seek work and pursue job-oriented education, or reside in the city of Brussels.
Another noteworthy development is the introduction of standardised tests. From March 2022 onwards, passing the civic orientation course is no longer only determined by a combination of active and consistent attendance in class and the accomplishment of a personal action plan that was established at the start of the course. In addition to process evaluation, students are now required to take a standardised digital test. Tests of civic orientation are still the exception rather than the rule across the OECD. Most of the countries that have such tests (such as Austria, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands) demand that the test be taken in the host-country language (OECD, 2023[1]). However, like Norway, Flanders allows test-takers to use their mother tongue or a contact language (currently 26 languages). To further ease the transition, the education inspectorate and the integration agencies have also streamlined the civic orientation course content by developing evaluable course objectives, a teacher manual, and a (digital) guidebook for students.
A standardised test for Dutch L2 (levels A1 and A2) will be implemented in September 2023. Together with permanent evaluation, the standardised test will replace the contextualised testing that the CABE and the CAE currently use to evaluate their students. Exemptions are only granted to participants with limited learning capacities.3 Notably, for both civic orientation and Dutch L2, failure to pass the test means having to retake the test and paying the fee again.
The introduction of fees and standardised tests has not been well received by social partners and actors in the integration sector. In October 2022, the umbrella organisation for the 13 Centres of Adult Basic Education (LIGO) and 10 Centres of Adult Education filed a petition with the Constitutional Court to challenge the standardised Dutch L2 test. They argue that a standardised test that is taken at one point in time conflicts with the idea that language learning is a cyclical process and with the customisation that Dutch L2 training providers attempt to offer. Social partners have also expressed concerns about the risk for students to “teach to the test” and the possible negative effects on students’ stress, motivation and study careers and on teachers’ professionalism and motivation (Social and Economic Council of Flanders, 2021[2]; Flemish Educational Council, 2021[3]).
Newcomers are obliged to register with the PES to foster economic self-reliance
The third pillar of the civic integration programme in Flanders is the orientation of participants to the Flemish PES (VDAB). The PES then provides job counselling to help new arrivals develop a trajectory to work (see Chapter 4 for further discussion). Before the reform, integration counsellors would only guide a small proportion of the integration participants towards the PES, namely those who were actively looking for work. This early separation between newcomers seeking work at the time of arrival, and those who are not, may have been intuitive to the extent that only those seeking work tend to enrol themselves with the PES. However, such an early separation between the active and the inactive likely had long-lasting consequences. It may have made it difficult for those who were temporarily outside the labour force at the time of arrival (e.g. due to sickness or childcare duties) to find their way to employment.
Since March 2022, all participants of working age with the ability to work are required to register with the PES within two months after signing an integration contract. This reform intends for every participant to receive the necessary guidance on employment opportunities. Only newcomers who can substantiate being “durably employed” are excluded from the requirement to register with the PES. Concretely, newcomers must show an employment contract of at least three months (or interim contracts for the same period without interruption).
Over the past few years, there have already been significant changes in how the PES approaches non-Dutch-speaking job seekers. Until 2016, job seekers generally needed to acquire basic competence in Dutch at CEFR level A1 before receiving assistance from the PES in their job search. And, as was also evidenced by the OECD field mission, most job seekers with little or no knowledge of Dutch would follow Dutch courses up to level A2 (the target level of the civic integration programme) before registering with the PES. However, the PES and social partners considered the results of these existing activation practices slow and ineffective (Van Hoof, Nyssen and Kanobana, 2020[12]; Social and Economic Council of Flanders, 2016[13]). With its Integration through Work programme, the PES essentially adopted a first-work approach based on the idea that job seekers who are not (yet) proficient in Dutch but who possess the required professional competencies can immediately receive counselling and be guided to work (VDAB, 2017[14]). The PES activation practices are now supposed to incorporate the Integration through Work logic fully (see Chapter 4 for further discussion).
During their intake with the PES, job seekers get assigned a job counsellor. Based on the job seekers’ distance to the labour market and personal career goals, the counsellor guides the subsequent job search, mediates with potential employers, and develops a tailored pathway to work (see Figure 3.6). Four prototype pathways are distinguished by the PES for job seekers with limited Dutch language skills. The preferred pathway is “Quick mediation”, where job applicants begin working right away and learn Dutch on the job. This route is only considered if candidates have the necessary technical skills, the employer and candidate can effectively communicate in a shared contact language, and Dutch is not a requirement for the position. The “Integrated pathway” integrates work or vocational training with language training into one overall programme (Dutch is used during professional training or in the workplace and combined with Dutch evening classes). In the “Combined pathway”, work or vocational training and language training are combined but not integrated (Dutch language course in the morning and vocational training in the afternoon). Finally, the “Linear pathway” takes the longest. Modules tend to follow one another, and vocational training can only start after a certain level of Dutch is reached. This pathway is chosen when Dutch is an absolute prerequisite for a job (e.g. in accounting), when the job seeker has low learning skills, or when there is a considerable labour market distance. There is no rigid distinction between the pathways; a job seeker who starts in a linear trajectory can switch to a combined or integrated trajectory after some time.
The practical implementation of the Integration through Work reform went hand in hand with the reform of the language policy at the PES (VDAB, 2021[15]). The main principle of the PES is that all clients must receive the same quality of service, regardless of their language proficiency. However, implementing this principle is not always straightforward due to the Flemish language legislation, dating back to the 1960s.4 When a client lacks the Dutch language proficiency required for their job target, lacks the Dutch language skills necessary to access counselling services, and no longer tries to improve his/her Dutch, the PES is not permitted to use a contact language or an interpreter. The PES client is, however, permitted to bring a friend or relative to act as a non-professional interpreter, but doing so can affect how well the service is provided. There remains a gap between the standard language level used by the PES in its communication (at least level B1), and the Dutch language proficiency of most newcomers. This “language gap” will likely aggravate with the acceleration of PES registration under the new third pillar (within 60 days after signing a contract). The PES has recently reinforced its language policy by providing career counsellors and education instructors with guidelines, resources, and training to support them in making communication choices, using the proper language tools, and making strategic use of other languages in training to support the learning of Dutch. The PES has also sought guidance from the Standing Committee for Language Supervision for other initiatives, including the use of translation technology and how this may increase the accessibility of their services and communication.
The Flemish PES is also in the process of developing a new strategy called Vijf voor Taal, which intends to enhance services for job seekers with limited Dutch language proficiency, through four specific measures (VDAB, 2021[15]). First, the PES is working towards a more sophisticated and repeated screening of Dutch language proficiency (oral, listening, writing, and reading) so that a tailor-made trajectory to work with consideration for Dutch language learning can continuously be developed.5 The intention is that these assessments are repeated at key moments in the job-seeking process (e.g. before and after a training module, in the event of re-entry into unemployment). It is also foreseen that not only job counsellors but also job seekers and employers will work with this new language screening tool when posting vacancies and when applying for jobs. Second, the ambition is to expand integrated pathways in which working or vocational training is combined with Dutch language training. Third, employers who employ or train job seekers with limited Dutch language skills will be able to call upon additional coaching and support. Finally, the job seekers’ language acquisition trajectory will be more closely monitored.
The programme will be extended with an innovative participation and network trajectory
Flanders will further increase its efforts to build language learning into everyday life – both in the workplace and through social interactions – by adding a fourth pillar to the civic integration programme in addition to the first three pillars (Dutch L2, civic orientation, and registration with the PES). The fourth pillar is a 40-hour network and participation programme designed to help newcomers become more socially connected and actively participate in society. It is a mandatory step for participants obliged to follow the civic integration programme who are not working or studying, and sanctions may be imposed. For all others, it is optional. Participants can enrol at any point during their integration trajectory and there is no Dutch language prerequisite.
The participation and network trajectory may take the shape of a buddy project, a traineeship at a company, association, organisation or local government, an initiation in voluntary work or a conduit to organisations that support culture, youth, or sports. The main idea is that local citizens and organisations support newly arrived migrants with their social integration, practising Dutch, and orientation around the city. In exchange, locals learn about the migrant’s culture and traditions. Although similar projects exist in other OECD countries, having a network and participation programme as an integral and compulsory component of the civic integration track is unique (Reidsma and De Cuyper, 2021[16]). The new fourth pillar also aims to answer to one of the long-standing shortcomings of the integration programme; that it does not succeed in augmenting inter-cultural contacts between newly arrived migrants and local citizens (Pulinx, 2016[17]).
The programme is scheduled to launch in January 2023. The 26 pilot projects (co-financed by AMIF) that were set up in 55 Flemish municipalities in 2021-22 highlight several organisational challenges (Briones Alonso, Van Ongevalle and De Cuyper, 2022[18]). First, as was also evidenced by the OECD field mission, the fourth pillar places a lot of pressure on local governance structures, the Public Centres for Social Welfare (PCSW) and civil society actors, who are responsible for developing and facilitating access to participation projects. Even though local integration projects exist in most of the municipalities, they now must create or unlock an offer tailored to the needs of a much larger group of recently arrived migrants, including for those who lack a contact language and have limited Dutch language skills. Furthermore, local governments are still unsure about how the fourth pillar will be funded and whether they will receive additional funds from the Flemish Government. The compulsory character of the project and the fact that integration participants are held responsible for its success pose another risk (however, integration participants are only held responsible if the condition of a sufficient and adapted offer is guaranteed). Finally, sustaining the time-intensive guidance of newcomers throughout the participation programme with a much more extensive influx appears challenging, especially considering the heavy caseloads integration counsellors already carry.
Effectiveness of the integration programme
Inter-Agency co-ordination still leaves a lot to be desired
Multiple actors are involved in the provision of integration activities. Given that the civic integration programme is tailored to participants’ individual needs, the actors and activities involved vary on a case-by-case basis. Figure 3.6 provides an overview of the main actors involved. In principle, the integration agencies are the primary managers of the integration trajectory. Through co-operation agreements with the PES and the PCSW, guidelines for counselling and referral of shared clients are established. In some cases, however, the management of the integration trajectory lies with the PES or the PCSW. Generally, the managing role rests with the PCSW in the case of newcomers who are not subject to a civic integration obligation, receive social assistance benefits, and are referred to the integration agencies by the PCSW. In those cases, the PCWS has control over the civic integration trajectory and can decide to take on the guidance to work itself or to engage the PES. However, the OECD field mission has demonstrated that the division of task between integration actors varies depending on the local context (with, for example, the PCWS taking on a much larger role in the city of Mechelen).
The OECD field mission additionally made clear that a communication gap between the actors is frequently reported, which results in inefficiencies because counsellors start the intake with the newcomer from scratch rather than building off the prior work of another actor. Due to the wide range of actors providing counselling services, new arrivals quickly lose track of whom they can best contact for which issue. The degree of communication and co-ordination among key players in the integration process also varies significantly across cities and municipalities. In local settings where different agencies face conflicts of interest and lack channels of communication, the integration of immigrants, particularly disadvantaged groups such as refugees and non-EU immigrant women, appears to be less successful (Ahmad-Yar, 2020[19]).
One of the objectives of the revised integration policy is to establish an integrated intake between the integration agencies, the PES and the PCSW. These integrated intakes can take different forms, such as group discussions, case discussions, and one-stop-shops, but the main idea is to strengthen and intensify the co-operation between the actors and increase the opportunity to participate in parallel activities. Eight pilot projects spread throughout Flanders tested different set-ups for an integrated intake in 2021-22, examining the effectiveness and customer-friendliness of the new role delineation, identifying gaps in the integration offer, and assessing the influence on staff capacity. A preliminary analysis found mixed results. Positive features included a better understanding of other organisations’ offerings among counsellors and enhanced clarity for newcomers about the aims and expectations linked to the civic integration trajectory and the trajectory to work. The time commitment and impact on staff resources associated with integrated intakes, as well as the fact that for many migrants, the intake with the PES occurred too early in the integration process, were some of the obstacles that were identified.
Notably, a key barrier regarding co-ordination issues is that the integration agencies, the PES and the PCSW lack systematic access to individual-level data on the (prior) integration and activation measures that the newcomer has participated in. At the moment, as was also evidenced by the OECD field mission, only basic information is exchanged. For example, specific data on the start time, duration and outcomes of the various integration activities (civic orientation, Dutch L2 training, PES activation, PCWS activation) is not yet shared in a structural way. The recent co-operation agreement (2021-25) between the integration agencies, the PES and the PCSW aimed to streamline co-ordination efforts, amongst others by building a more efficient tool for data exchange. Yet, this has proven to be a very cumbersome process.
Some migrant groups experience more difficulties to participate in the various civic integration stages
As mentioned, there are large differentials by target group and category of entry in the proportion of new arrivals who were invited to participate in the civic integration programme but never register with an integration agency and thus, never started integration training. Others register and participate in the intake (the initial assessment) but drop out before signing an integration contract. Others sign an integration contract but never enrol in either civic orientation or Dutch L2 training, possibly because they are granted an exemption after taking a test.
To explore these differences, Figure 3.7 shows the cumulative share of integration participants (aangemelde inburgeraars) who have ever engaged in the various steps of the integration programme over the first years after arrival. Of those who settled in Flanders between 2015 and 2019, 87% signed an integration contract, 76% started civic orientation and Dutch L2 training, and 58% registered with the Flemish PES (VDAB) within the first three years after arrival. Note that the latter proportion likely has skyrocketed among more recent cohorts, as from March 2022 onwards registration with the PES became an obligatory pillar of the civic integration programme. Recent migrants will also interact with the PES much earlier in their integration process (within two months of signing an integration contract). Hence, a significant share will do so before having initiated civic orientation or Dutch language training.
Note: Permanent migrants (aged 18 to 59 at arrival) who settled in Flanders between 2015 and 2019 and registered with an integration agency. The cumulative incidence, or failure function, is computed as 1-St from the life table using the Kaplan-Meier approach.
Source: OECD Secretariat calculations based on Crossroads Bank for Civic Integration data.
Beneath these averages, there are notable individual differences in the propensity to engage in the various civic integration steps. Estimated effects from Cox regressions6 (see Annex Table 3.A.1) show that, other things equal, the propensity of participation in integration training (Dutch L2 and civic orientation) was significantly higher among integration participants who migrated for humanitarian and family reasons than among other groups. Migrants who were in employment or study at the start of the programme also had a significantly lower propensity to engage in integration training, despite the more flexible integration offer for this group. Low-educated newcomers were also less likely than their higher educated peers to participate in integration training.
Finally, while migrant women had a higher propensity to take up integration training than men, childcare responsibilities remained a significant impediment for them. In many OECD countries, family commitments stand in the way of women’s participation in integration measures. To ensure that migrant mothers have the possibility to learn the host country language and benefit from integration activities, several OECD countries have designed integration programmes in a way that they are flexible and compatible with childcare (OECD, 2017[20]). Recently, Flanders has also developed a custom-made civic integration trajectory for low-literate women with young children (see Box 3.3) (Agency for Integration and Civic Integration, 2022[7]).
Annex Table 3.A.1 also shows that the propensity to register with the Flemish PES was significantly lower among labour and study migrants than among other groups, women compared to men (particularly if women had young children at arrival), and low-educated migrants compared to higher educated ones. Note that these individual differences have likely decreased or even disappeared since the introduction of the obligatory registration with the PES. Increasing and accelerating newcomers’ interaction with the PES may exert positive effects on their early labour market trajectories. Notably, evidence from the Netherlands showed that the time non-EU immigrant women and their children spend on contacting public employment agencies and going through job ads significantly increases the number of job offers these women receive (Van Hoye et al., 2019[21]).
It is sometimes particularly challenging for migrant women with young children to participate in integration training regularly, due to a lack of (affordable) childcare and mobility (OECD, 2017[20]). Flanders has developed a customised civic integration trajectory for low-literate women with young children to overcome both practical and psychological barriers. The trajectory was installed after the positive evaluation of pilot projects in the Flemish provinces, Brussels, Ghent and Antwerp, which were set up in 2016 with the support of the European Fund for Asylum, Migration, and Integration (AMIF) and the Flemish Government. In these projects, the integration agencies worked with the Centres for Adult Basic Education and the Flemish Agency for Growing Up to offer low-literate migrant mothers a combined trajectory in which integration training was organised at pre- and primary schools. The main aim was to lower the practical barriers and to give migrant mothers a chance to participate in the civic integration programme. The courses were focused on Dutch L2 training but also on support in healthcare and education, raising opportunities for children, and strengthening the integration of mothers. There are no exact evaluation results, but when the participants were asked about their experiences, most reported feeling less isolated because of the contact and shared experience with other mothers. They also reported feeling more confident about going to the library, the local market, or making use of public transportation. Due to positive evaluation, combined trajectories for low-literate mothers with young children are now structurally part of the civic integration programme in Flanders. However, the number of available places is still limited, due to these trajectories’ high costs and high demands in terms of time and energy.
Source: Vervaet and Geens (2016[22]); https://www.integratie-inburgering.be/nl/wat-kunnen-we-voor-jou-doen/inburgeringstraject-en-cursus-maatschappelijke-orientatie/inburgering-voor-laaggeletterde-ouders-met-jonge-kinderen
Civic integration trajectories remain mostly sequential, with little parallel training
There is growing support at the policy level for the notion that parallel and integrated approaches, i.e. the combination of various forms of integration training, will speed up the integration process of newly arrived migrants (OECD, 2021[9]; OECD, 2023[1]; Miltenburg and Dagevos, 2021[23]). Results for the 2015-19 settlement cohort in Flanders, however, seem to suggest that civic integration trajectories were still largely sequential (see Table 3.3). For example, only 37% of the integration participants started Dutch language training in parallel (i.e. within the same two-month window) with civic orientation classes. At the same time, a considerable share of integration participants registered with the PES more than 6 months after having taken up Dutch language training (34%) or civic orientation classes (26%).
The focus on formal language learning implies protracted integration trajectories for slow learners
Once a newcomer has completed all pillars of the integration programme, they are awarded a civic integration certificate. For immigrants, this certificate may be helpful or even required in various circumstances, such as when applying for jobs, renewing a residence permit, or attaining Belgian nationality. Before, newcomers who wanted to acquire a certificate of civic integration at the end of the integration training generally needed to attend at least 80% of their classes and demonstrate via a language test that they had reached an A2 level of Dutch. Under the new Integration Act, all participants must pass a standardised test for civic orientation and Dutch at level A2 (from September 2023), have registered with the PES to receive an integration certificate, and complete the participation and network programme. For immigrants who – due to “limited learning capacities” – could not fulfil all the programme’s pillars, a “declaration of efforts” is given instead. These limited learning capacities are determined by the integration agency and by language course providers.
Of the 2015-19 cohort, three in four (74%) participants obtained an integration certificate within 5 years after signing their integration contract. The average duration of the programme (i.e. the time between the contract and receipt of the certificate) was 17 months. While 43% of the participants finished the integration track in a year or less, one in five needed more than three years to obtain an integration certificate. As the scope of the civic integration programme is adjusted to individual skills and needs, it is no surprise that the programme’s duration showed much variation. The average duration ranged between 12 and 21 months for those who followed language training at the CAE (shortened: 12 months, standard: 15 months, extended: 21 months). In contrast, civic integration trajectories were much longer for those who followed language training at the CABE (standard: 29 months, alpha: 37 months). Figure 3.8 shows that, within five years following the signing of an integration contract, approximately four in five CAE clients obtained an integration certificate, compared to half of the CABE clients and two in five clients in the CABE alpha track.
Note: Permanent migrants (aged 18 to 59 at arrival) who settled in Flanders between 2015 and 2019 and signed an integration contract. The cumulative incidence, or failure function, is computed as 1-St from the life table using the Kaplan-Meier approach.
Source: OECD Secretariat calculations based on Crossroads Bank for Civic Integration data.
The results from a Cox regression (see Annex Table 3.A.1) show that, adjusted for other variables, the propensity of obtaining a certificate was significantly higher among humanitarian migrants compared to other groups, women compared to men (except if women had young children at arrival), highly educated migrants compared to low educated ones, and those who were not at work or in education at the start of their civic integration track.
Civic integration trajectories differ considerably across local contexts
Even though Flanders has developed a centralised integration policy, there are considerable local disparities in terms of the implementation and outcomes of the civic integration programme (see Table 3.4). Notably, the proportion of participants receiving an integration certificate varied from 53% to 81%, while the integration programme’s overall average duration spanned from 13 to 21 months. After adjusting for immigrant characteristics, the results of the Cox regressions (not shown) reveal that there were still significant differences across local contact offices concerning civic integration outcomes. A role is thus likely also played by underlying local conditions, such as the capacity of and the co-ordination and communication among integration stakeholders (Ahmad-Yar, 2020[19]). For example, in some smaller municipalities, having just one PES or PCSW caseworker to help immigrants navigate the local labour market was cited during the OECD field mission as posing a substantial impediment to co-operation and implementation, especially when this caseworker became ill or had to be away for other reasons.
Despite high participation rates, language training has not produced strong results…
The civic integration programme in Flanders has a strong focus on language learning, and a relatively high proportion of integration participants (aangemelde inburgeraars) at some point enrol in Dutch L2 training (75%). However, despite high participation rates, language training has not produced strong results in Flanders. This becomes immediately clear when we contrast Flanders with other European OECD countries. According to data from the 2021 ad hoc module of the Labour Force Survey, about one in three non-EU immigrants in Flanders felt that their current level of Dutch was at the level “Beginner” in 2021, which is the highest share of the countries considered in Figure 3.9. Given that a large proportion of the immigrants born outside of the EU were obliged to participate in publicly funded language training (47% between 2011 and 2021), this is a startling finding.
Note: Non-EU-born population aged 15 to 74. Data are ordered according to the sum of “Mother tongue”, “Advanced” and “Intermediate”.
Source: EU-LFS ad hoc module 2021 (Eurostat); Flanders: national LFS.
Data from the Flemish Crossroads Bank for Civic Integration confirms that many recent migrants appear to remain at low levels of Dutch proficiency, even after several years in Flanders (see also Meeus and De Cuyper (2015[24])). Focussing on the 2015-19 cohort, six out of ten integration participants who signed an integration contract achieved the target grade of A2 three years after arrival – often the grade necessary for entry into vocational training (see Chapter 4 for further discussion). Only about 16% attained a level of B1 or higher. These shares rise to 76% and 26%, respectively, six years after arrival (see Figure 3.10).
Note: Permanent migrants (aged 18 to 59 at arrival) who settled in Flanders between 2015 and 2019 and signed an integration contract.
Source: OECD Secretariat calculations based on Crossroads Bank for Civic Integration data.
However, it is essential to highlight that Dutch L2 acquisition is only partially registered in the Crossroads Bank for Civic Integration. Language acquisition at lower levels (A1-A2) is also much better tracked than higher levels (B1-C1) (see Box 3.4). Data from the Department of Education and Training on all Dutch L2 courses completed at the Centres for Adult (Basic) Education indicate slightly more favourable outcomes. Note, however, that these statistics lump together registrations of recent and settled migrants. In school year 2020-21, there were more than 83 000 unique registrations at the CAE and just over 21 000 registrations at the CABE. 52% of the CAE registrations were for levels A1–A2 and 42% for level B1. Less than 6% of the enrolments were for courses at levels B2 to C1. Fifty-five percent of CABE registrations during that period were for A1-A2, 40% for the Alpha track, and 5% for the Latin script programme. That means that overall, close to four in ten unique registrations were for courses at levels above A2.
The average figures discussed so far mask a high degree of heterogeneity in the immigrant population. The results from an ordered logistic regression7 (see Annex Table 3.A.2) show that formal Dutch language acquisition is positively associated with having migrated for humanitarian or family reasons, being female, not having young children at arrival, having migrated at a younger age, and a higher level of education. Furthermore, Dutch language acquisition is highest among immigrants with Afro-Asiatic (but not Arabic or Berber) or Austronesian and Sino-Tibetan-Asian languages as their mother tongue.
…a challenge which the revised Integration Act aims to tackle
The revised Integration Act aims to address the issue of immigrants not pursuing Dutch L2 levels beyond the minimum requirements. From March 2022 onwards, immigrants who are obliged to take part in the civic integration track will need to prove that they have independently attained Dutch oral skills at level B1 two years after receiving their integration certificate. Exempted groups include those who received a “declaration of efforts” because obtaining an integration certificate was impossible due to limited learning capacities and those who can prove that they worked and/or studied continuously for six months in the two years following the conclusion of the integration track. If immigrants fail to demonstrate that they are actively participating in a B1 level course for at least one year, sanctions can be imposed.8
In international comparison, few OECD countries oblige immigrants to reach a B1 level or above, and even fewer ask immigrants to reach that level in the first few years after arrival (OECD, 2023[1]; OECD, 2021[9]). Countries with an obligation to reach a certain language level as part of their “civic integration programme” are Austria (A1 within 2 years), France (A1 within one year), Luxembourg (A1 within 2 years) and some cantons of Switzerland. The target level in the Netherlands was also revised in 2021 from A2 to B1, with an exception for individuals unable to meet it. The reform will hence make Flanders’ target level among the highest in the OECD.
Like all students, immigrants are more likely to succeed when language courses are designed to meet needs-related, transparent, and realistic objectives. Therefore, countries that oblige immigrants to reach a certain language level within a prescribed number of years must carefully consider whether the target level is reasonable. Comparing previously achieved levels of language competence to the newly required levels highlights the ambition of the reform in Flanders. Average predicted probabilities from the logistic regression (reported in Annex Table 3.A.2) shows that the likelihood of achieving a B1 level of Dutch after five years, adjusted for other variables, varied from 18% for the low-educated to 30% for the high-educated integration participants who signed an integration contract (see Figure 3.11). The average predicted probability of holding a B1 was 40% for those who followed a shortened Dutch L2 track at the CAE. For those who took a standard or extended track, the probability was 11 and 22 percentage points lower. For those who followed language training at the CABE, the average predicted probability was very low: 6% after five years of residence. Clearly, it will take tremendous efforts to raise the Dutch proficiency of those with medium or high levels of education to B1. However, it will be even more of a challenge for low-educated migrants.
In recognition of the barriers some individuals may face to achieving the new target, Flanders offers exemptions from sanctioning immigrants with limited learning capacities. However, while there are good reasons to incentivise immigrants to learn the language, forcing them to attend language training by imposing penalties or sanctions may result in resentment or anxiety and weaken immigrants’ intrinsic motivation to learn. There is a balance between designing policies that render participation attractive and acknowledging the importance of freedom of choice for motivation.
Note: Permanent migrants (aged 18 to 59 at arrival) who settled in Flanders between 2015 and 2019 and signed an integration contract. Average predicted probabilities were calculated based on the ordered logistic regression, with formal Dutch language proficiency as the dependent variable, reported in Annex Table 3.A.2.
Source: OECD Secretariat calculations based on Crossroads Bank for Civic Integration data.
The Crossroads Bank for Civic Integration of the Flemish Agency for Home Affairs registers data on the Dutch L2 trajectories of new arrivals in Flanders. The Department of Education and Training’s (Agency for Higher Education, Adult Education, Qualifications and Study Grants) Data warehouse DAVINCI, which compiles information on all Dutch L2 course enrolments and evaluations at the Centres for Adult (Basic) Education, serves as the primary source of information on Dutch L2 for the Crossroads Bank. When analysing and interpreting Crossroads Bank for Civic Integration data on Dutch L2 acquisition, there are some significant limitations to keep in mind. First, the Crossroads Bank only keeps track of the Dutch L2 trajectory of the newcomers who register with the integration agency and not of those who do not. Second, only data on language courses provided by the Centres of Adult (Basic) Education is gathered, meaning that language training at university language centres and privately managed organisations like the Flemish PES and Syntra is out of scope. Finally, the quality of Dutch L2 registration at lower levels (A1-A2) is significantly higher than that of registration at higher levels (B1-C1). Information on A1-A2 is based on DAVINCI data and extensive testing, making it possible to also track the people who reach these levels by informal learning. Given that A2 is the civic integration programme’s target level, the integration agencies also closely monitor its progress. In contrast, for levels B1-C2, there is little testing, and information almost exclusively comes from DAVINCI; informal learning is thus hardly tracked. Integration participants are also not compelled to reach these levels, so there is less follow-up by the integration agencies.
For various reasons, immigrants may require a certificate demonstrating their proficiency in Dutch (f.e., to apply for specific occupations or to obtain Belgian nationality). The CEFR-compliant certifying, level-determining tests for levels A1 to B2 have been developed to meet this need. In 2021, 8 000 certified tests were administered, of which 86% concerned levels A1–A2 and only 14% B1–B2 (Agency for Integration and Civic Integration, 2022[7]).
Another source of Dutch L2 acquisition is the data from the Flemish PES. PES data contain information on all (vocation-specific) Dutch L2 programmes they provide or tender. Given that the PES language programmes cannot be easily translated into CEFR levels, they are discussed separately in Chapter 4.
Source: Meeus and De Cuyper (2015[24]); https://onderwijs.vlaanderen.be/nl/cursisten/aanvullende-informatie/gebruik-persoonsgegevens-van-cursisten.
Few immigrants have employment once the civic integration programme ends
After completing the civic integration programme, new arrivals are expected to be able to function in Flemish society and find employment. Following the civic integration programme, however, many newcomers – particularly migrant women and the low-educated – are not working when the programme ends. Two years after having signed an integration contract, only 36% and 17% of low-educated male and female migrants, respectively, were in employment (see Figure 3.12). Five years after having signed an integration contract, these figures change to 53% and 27%, respectively. Even for highly educated migrants, the actual integration pathway is frequently much longer than two to five years, and many continue to have specific needs even after this period.
Note: Permanent migrants (aged 20 to 59 at arrival) who settled in Flanders between 2005 and 2015 and signed an integration contract. The definition of employment differs from that in the Labour Force Survey, as MIA panel data come from information in administrative registers.
Source: OECD Secretariat calculations based on the MIA panel (for more information, see Chapter 4).
One of the most critical findings observed in integration outcomes across OECD countries is that early intervention is critical to the success of integration policies (OECD, 2016[25]). The integration pathway of new arrivals in Flanders involves multiple stages and many actors, but the first port of call is often the municipality. Only once immigrants have found housing, and once it is clear in which municipality they will settle, can integration activities fully begin. Settlement and integration are thus inextricably linked.
Immigrants are concentrated in and around the Flemish centre cities
In most European OECD countries, the share of immigrants in the population is higher in urban areas with high population density and in large metropolitan areas than smaller cities and rural areas (Liebig and Spielvogel, 2021[26]). Flanders is no exception: the proportion of non-nationals is highest in the outskirts of Brussels, in the border region with the Netherlands in the provinces of Limburg and Antwerp, in central Limburg and the region between Antwerp, Ghent, Brussels and Leuven (the so-called “Flemish Diamond”). EU nationals tend to live close to the border, in Central Limburg and the outskirts of Brussels. Non-EU nationals are spread more equally across Flanders, with high concentrations in the “Flemish Diamond” and the former mining districts of Limburg. In 2021, close to four in ten non-nationals lived in one of the 13 Flemish centre cities,9 even though the share relative to the local population varied drastically among them: it was 22% in Antwerp and 15% in Ghent, the two largest cities, but only 8% in Hasselt and 7% in Bruges.
Even though non-nationals are still spread unevenly across Flanders, the dissimilarity index – one of the most widely used indicators of residential segregation (see Liebig and Spielvogel (2021[26]) for a discussion) – has decreased from 36 to 27 between 2011 and 2021, suggesting that immigrants are now slightly more dispersed at the municipality level than a decade ago. However, this trend of greater dispersal may not hold at the neighbourhood level.
The choice of settlement for immigrants may depend on network effects and location-specific characteristics (such as local labour market and housing market conditions and the presence of public amenities). Using administrative data on Belgian municipalities between 1994 and 2007, Jayet et al. (2016[27]) tried to disentangle the network effect from the other factors. They found that housing and labour market variables drive the geographical distribution of immigrants in Belgium and that the attractiveness of certain municipalities predominates over the positive influence of social networks, even if the magnitude of the effects varies from one immigrant group to another.
Within cities, immigrants are overrepresented in disadvantaged neighbourhoods
Within cities, the foreign-born tend to be concentrated in specific neighbourhoods. In a recent comparative study, Andersson et al. (2018[28]) and Rogne et al. (2020[29]) analysed residential segregation patterns at the neighbourhood level in 2011 for Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and Norway. They used geo-coded, micro-level register data from all five countries to compute comparative measures of segregation for non-European immigrants, across neighbourhoods covering the whole territory of each country, at different spatial scales (from small neighbourhoods with about 200 people to larger areas with about 51 000 people). At the smallest scale level (corresponding to neighbourhoods with 200 persons), they found strikingly similar patterns of concentration for the first four countries, while Norway stood out with a much lower level of segregation, as measured by the dissimilarity index (see Liebig and Spielvogel (2021[26]). At larger-scale levels, Belgium had a relatively strong concentration compared with the other countries.
The Belgian and Flemish case was further analysed by Costa and De Valk (2018[30]) and Imeraj et al. (2018[31]). They identified a process of clustering of deprived immigrants in Belgium’s inner cities (Brussels, Antwerp and Liege). Despite the central location of neighbourhoods with high concentrations of immigrants and poverty, they found concentration to be very high and persistent, both in extension and in population density (Costa and De Valk, 2018[30]). The extent to which concentration varies by scale is more outspoken for some migrant groups and some cities. Predominantly Turkish and Moroccan communities and less wealthy immigrants have ended up in the nineteenth-century belt of Belgium’s major cities, with the least attractive housing stock (Imeraj, Willaert and de Valk, 2018[31]). New arrivals born in non-EU countries tend to settle in these same central areas, where the housing stock is cheapest, oldest and most poorly equipped, socio-economic conditions are worse, and immigrant concentration is strongest (Schillebeeckx, 2019[32]; Gsir, 2010[33]).
The high residential concentration of immigrants across cities and neighbourhoods within cities is a universal phenomenon in OECD countries. However, the effects of residential concentration on integration are complex (Liebig and Spielvogel, 2021[26]; Dagnelie, Mayda and Maystadt, 2019[34]). On the one hand, arrival in an area with high concentration is often associated with better initial employment prospects for immigrants. On the other hand, in the longer run, immigrant concentration tends to hamper host-country language acquisition and, in many cases, educational advancement for children of immigrants (see Chapter 6 for further discussion). In Flanders (and Belgium), evidence on the effects of concentration on integration outcomes is lacking, even though it became clear from the OECD field mission that segregation represents a major concern, especially in municipalities with longstanding migrant presence.
The accessibility of housing steers immigrants towards poorer neighbourhoods
Housing is often considered a core policy area concerning neighbourhood composition and therefore migrant concentration (Liebig and Spielvogel, 2021[26]). In the case of Flanders, because of the liberal private housing market and the undersupply of social housing in urban areas, the availability of accessible and affordable housing plays a significant role in steering migrant populations towards specific neighbourhoods (Jayet et al., 2016[27]; Costa and De Valk, 2018[30]; Schillebeeckx, 2019[32]). The housing market in Flanders is predominantly a private one. Promoting home ownership has always been the cornerstone of Belgian housing policy (around 72% of all Flemish households are homeowners). Investment in the public rental sector remains very limited. The private rental market is also rather limited, especially for renters with a small budget. As a result, there is strong pressure on the rental market, and competition is fierce. Prices have increased, especially for houses and apartments of lower quality. Flemish cities such as Antwerp and Ghent are faced with a housing crisis for vulnerable low-income groups (De Decker et al., 2015[35]).
Given the obstacles immigrants face on the private housing market, the social housing sector is particularly relevant for tackling residential segregation. However, Flanders’ social housing sector is small compared to other European OECD countries. Only 6% of housing in general and 12% of the housing in Flemish cities is social housing. In France, Denmark and the Netherlands, social housing makes up 15%, 20% and 29% of the national stock, respectively (OECD, 2022[36]; Beeckmans and Geldof, 2022[37]). Although stable over the past decade, this relatively low share of social housing is not enough to meet demand, as evidenced by the extensive waiting list of social housing-eligible households (around 180 000 households in 2021). In addition, and unlike many European OECD countries (Liebig and Spielvogel, 2021[26]), Flemish housing policies inhibit recent immigrants from accessing social housing due to the criteria of language and local anchoring. Immigrants need to have obtained a CEFR level A2 of Dutch before they are allowed to apply for social housing. Furthermore, Flanders reserves social housing for residents who have resided in a municipality for five consecutive years within a period of ten years, thus excluding recent migrants. In contrast, countries like the Germany and the Netherlands allow newcomers to apply for social housing immediately after completing an integration and language test.
Due to Flanders’ lack of public and social housing, low-income immigrant families are pushed to the private rental market with the lowest-quality housing stock. Here, they face many barriers in their highly pressured search for housing, including smaller networks, discrimination, and a lack of knowledge about the functioning of the housing market (Schillebeeckx, 2019[32]). Research measured a high incidence of discrimination against non-European immigrants in the housing market, especially in the bigger cities of Antwerp and Ghent (Van der Bracht, Coenen and Van de Putte, 2014[38]; Unia, 2014[39]). The fact that immigrants primarily depend on the private housing market, with marked deficiencies in its low-cost housing segment, represents a critical driver of their segregation in specific city neighbourhoods and poor housing conditions.
Even when immigrants leave concentrated neighbourhoods, they often remain trapped in lower-quality housing
Housing conditions are a vital component of households’ well-being, and access to homeownership is an essential step in the integration process. In Flanders (Belgium), housing conditions overall are among the best in the OECD, according to the OECD Better Life Index. However, it is well-established that immigrants experience disadvantages in the housing market and have, on average, poorer housing conditions than the native-born (Noppe et al., 2018[40]; Van den Broucke, Heylen and Wets, 2015[41]). As in most European OECD countries, immigrants in Flanders are less likely to be homeowners. In 2020, slightly more than half of the foreign-born households owned the accommodation that they occupied, compared to eight in ten native-born households (see Figure 3.13). Immigrant households were also more likely to live in overcrowded or substandard accommodations. Furthermore, as many immigrant households have low income and prices in the larger cities are relatively high, rent takes a larger bite out of their family income than it does for native-born households. For most housing indicators, the widest differences vis-à-vis the native-born occur for non-EU immigrants.
Note: A dwelling is considered overcrowded if the number of rooms is less than one room for the single person or the couple responsible for the dwelling (or two rooms if they do not form a couple), plus one room for every two additional adults, plus one room for every two children. Housing is considered substandard or deprived if it is too dark, does not provide exclusive access to a bathroom, or if the roof leaks. A household renting their dwelling is considered overburdened if the total rent costs represent more than 40% of the total disposable household income.
Source: OECD Settling In 2022 (forthcoming); Flanders: EU-SILC.
Increasing asylum inflows have led to an accommodation crisis…
The substantial – but not unprecedented – rise in asylum applications in 2015 caused a crisis for the Belgian Government in meeting its obligation to provide “bed, bath and bread” to applicants in the asylum procedure (see Box 3.5) (Wyckaert, Leinfelder and De Decker, 2020[42]; Beeckmans and Geldof, 2022[37]). The lodging of asylum seekers it is often determined by crisis management and the availability of vacant infrastructure at the time of crises. Rather than preparing for rising numbers of asylum seekers, authorities have primarily looked for emergency solutions whenever sudden upsurges in the number of asylum requests led to severe shortcomings in the reception infrastructure capacity. In the asylum system, “optimisation processes” continuously occur, during which new temporary centres are opened when numbers increase and closed when numbers decline. Because of the organisation of reception infrastructure as a crisis measure, these infrastructures are mainly large-scale vacant infrastructures (e.g. holiday parks, nursing homes, hospitals, and military barracks), often in remote locations.
The recent rise in the number of asylum seekers has further intensified the challenge to find accommodation for asylum seekers in Flanders. Since October 2021, each day dozens of asylum applicants – mainly single men – do not receive access to a reception place, often for various days, if not for weeks. The situation further deteriorated following the outbreak of the war in Ukraine which led to a rise in the number people with temporary protection status (see Box 3.6). Asylum seekers who do not receive the reception to which they are entitled can go to the labour court to enforce that reception. In the year 2022, the Belgian federal reception agency Fedasil was convicted almost 7 000 times for failing to provide reception for asylum seekers.
…and policy gaps interrupt the housing pathways of refugees
In Flanders, the government does not provide initial housing, and new arrivals must therefore look for accommodation by themselves. Unlike countries such as Germany and the Netherlands, where refugees are allowed to apply for social housing immediately after completing an integration and language test, Flanders reserves social housing for residents who have resided in a municipality for five consecutive years within a period of ten years, thus excluding refugees (Beeckmans and Geldof, 2022[37]). Consequently, refugees must search for an affordable place to rent in the already oversaturated private rental housing market. Due to the lack of cheap rental accommodation, refugees limited social networks and discrimination by landlords and real estate brokers, this transition is highly problematic. As a result, refugees often end up in precarious housing conditions which complicate their integration process (Saeys, Vandevoordt and Verschraegen, 2018[43]).
While the refugee housing crisis is partly attributed to shortfalls in the housing market, policy gaps in Flanders’ integration system provide another explanation (Wyckaert, Leinfelder and De Decker, 2020[42]). In Flanders, there is hardly any relationship between the policy domains of asylum and reception organised at the federal level and domains of integration and housing implemented at the regional level. Chapter 2 discussed how integration competencies were shifted towards the regional level and then gradually restructured. In that process, several features of integration support – including securing access to housing – were dropped from the regional political agenda. As a result, no state institution is responsible for administering the transition of recognised refugees into the housing market (Vandevoordt and Verschraegen, 2019[44]).
Most of the responsibility ended up with local authorities, causing pressure on cities and municipalities that was not at all compensated for by the regional level. Consequently, volunteers and non-governmental initiatives (ORBIT vzw, Flemish Refugee Action, Belgian Committee for Aid to Refugees, Caritas International Belgium, CIRE, Convivial) have increasingly provided housing support to refugees in order to fill the policy gap (Geldof, D’eer and Robeyns, 2019[45]). These organisations often act as mediators and provide information on how to search for housing, tenants’ and landlords’ rights and obligations, and maintenance of the accommodation. Some NGOs also provide accommodation for a short time to vulnerable persons or families in an emergency. However, many initiatives for housing support report being overburdened and in need of more structural support. Social workers of Fedasil, the integration agencies and the PCSW also assist asylum seekers and refugees in finding housing through linguistic assistance or legal and financial consultation. However, given that finding suitable and affordable accommodation for refugees is such a daunting task, the amount of time social workers can invest in the search process for housing remains limited.
After having arrived in Flanders, asylum seekers often must rely on informal housing settings for several days before applying for international protection. Their asylum application must be filed at a refugee accommodation centre in Brussels, managed by the Belgian federal reception agency Fedasil. Once their application is registered, asylum seekers are entitled to some material assistance, which includes short-term accommodation in the reception centre (on average, one to three weeks). The Immigration Office registers the application, takes fingerprints and investigates whether Belgium is responsible for processing the application according to the Dublin Regulations. If so, the application is reviewed by the Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless Persons.
A recent audit of the asylum system published in October 2022 has identified significant bottlenecks in the asylum policy, chief among them the lack of personnel, co-operation between the asylum services, and efficient (digital) processes for data exchange. As a result, there is a vast backlog of cases at the Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless Persons (15 685 in 2021). In response, the federal government recruited 700 new staff members in 2022 and took steps towards replacing the current Aliens Act with a new Migration Code, aiming to make the asylum procedure more coherent and leading to swifter procedures and more legal certainty. Another recommendation from the recent audit, currently under political discussion, is the consolidation of the Belgian asylum services into a single organisation.
Once the asylum application has been submitted, most asylum seekers are allocated to one of the large-scale collective asylum centres in Belgium, where they stay for the entire application procedure. Fedasil manages around 60 to 80 asylum centres, some in collaboration with partners such as the Red Cross or Caritas. The allocation is based on the availability of lodging in asylum centres, the balance between Belgium’s regions and sometimes language proficiency or the presence of family members (Fedasil, 2019[46]). Unlike other European OECD countries (such as Norway and the United Kingdom), where the majority of accommodation centres are decentralised and asylum seekers are frequently housed in single homes, asylum seekers in Flanders (as in the Netherlands) are primarily housed in centralised asylum centres (Bakker, Cheung and Phillimore, 2016[47]; Beeckmans and Geldof, 2022[37]). Asylum seekers are entitled to material assistance during their asylum application process, which can last from six months to five years (one year on average). Fedasil is responsible for the support and material reception of asylum seekers in the broadest sense, including (collective or individual) housing, food, medical care, and legal aid (“bed, bath and bread”).
Once asylum seekers have received refugee status (or another form of protection), they are expected to leave the asylum centre. To smoothen this transition, nearly all 300 Flemish municipalities host local reception initiatives (Lokale opvanginitiatieven) set up by the PCSW. Refugees can stay there for up to two months after leaving the asylum centre. Once outside the formal structures of asylum centres and local reception initiatives, refugees are expected to find their own accommodation. For most refugees, however, this term of three months is unfeasible as the search for housing takes five to six months on average (Wyckaert, Leinfelder and De Decker, 2020[42]). Unlike some other European OECD countries (Denmark, Norway and Sweden), Flanders does not pursue stringent policies to enforce a dispersal of refugees after initial reception. While asylum centres and local reception initiatives are spread across the country (implying a dispersal of asylum seekers through these initial reception facilities), refugees are allowed to register themselves anywhere in the country after recognition (Beeckmans and Geldof, 2022[37]). Drawing on data from National Register, El Moussawi and Schuermans demonstrate that recently arrived Syrian and Iraqi refugees tend to move to (sub)urban areas after they have been granted status, drawn by the presence of existing diaspora (El Moussawi and Schuermans, 2021[48]).
Social assistance is the only social protection scheme to which newly arrived migrants can have rapid access
In theory, foreigners in Flanders are entitled to social security benefits under the same terms as Belgian nationals. In practice, however, newly arrived immigrants are unable to avail themselves of these benefits since a work history (or at least a minimum qualifying period) is often required, which, in many cases, they cannot meet. Because social assistance, in contrast to other social benefits, does not have any requirements such as waiting periods and compulsory payment of contributions, it forms the only social protection programme to which newly arrived immigrants can have relatively rapid access in the largely contributions-based Belgian social protection system (Mussche, Corluy and Marx, 2013[49]).
Social assistance schemes, the residual safety net in most OECD countries, provide a tax-financed means-tested minimum income to working-age people who are unable to obtain sufficient means of livelihood through the labour market, a social insurance benefit or through income sources obtained by other household members (Immervoll, 2010[50]). In Flanders (Belgium), the social assistance scheme is subject to a household-based means-test, which includes the income of the partner, children and parents living in the same household. Other eligibility criteria are being at least 18 years old, residing legally and continuously in Belgium, being available for work, and having exhausted all social insurance rights. The federal statutory framework on social assistance is administered by the PCSW, one in each Flemish municipality (De Wilde et al., 2017[51]).
A social assistance benefit can be granted based on two Acts; the Right to Social Integration and the Right to Social Assistance Act.10 Recognised refugees, stateless persons and people having more than five years of residence in Belgium are eligible for the benefit under the first Act. Other foreigners who cannot claim the minimum income benefit under the Right to Social Integration Act can claim the social assistance benefit under the second Act (Carpentier, 2016[52]). Asylum seekers with material aid in reception centres cannot claim a social assistance benefit, except in some specific situations.
The level of the social assistance benefit set by the federal government is the same for both Acts. On 1 January 2022, the monthly (maximum) amounts were EUR 759, 1 138 and 1 538 for a person within a childless couple, a single person and a person or family with dependent children, respectively. As the federal government is apprehensive that beneficiaries have sufficient work incentives, benefits are substantially below the net minimum wage (EUR 1 842 in June 2022). In fact, social assistance benefit amounts are rather low by international standards, especially for single persons and couples with children. As a result, social assistance beneficiaries in all household types live with an income that is below the relative poverty line (Van Mechelen and Marchal, 2013[53]).
Like in other OECD countries, the social assistance scheme in Flanders is intended as a temporary safety net for people in need. To facilitate the transition to the labour market, several activation measures were designed for social assistance beneficiaries who experience a large distance to the labour market. Some other programmes targeting the long-term unemployed are also open to them. The most important activation measure, called “Article 60”, involves temporary employment where the PCSW (partly) subsidises the wage costs. The wage subsidy is attributed for a period just long enough to allow the participant to become entitled to an unemployment benefit. Other activation measures generally involve a waiving of, or a reduction in employers’ social insurance contributions, but some also subsidise the wage costs. Some programmes are directed at the non-profit sector. Others can be used by all private-sector employers. As the target group is generally the long-term non-employed, a minimum number of days without employment in a reference period is required to be eligible. In all activation measures, participants are paid at least the minimum wage. In the Right to Social Integration act, the goal of labour market integration is given much more emphasis than in the Right to Social Assistance act.11
Non-EU nationals have considerably higher rates of receipt and longer periods of receipt compared to EU and Belgian nationals
In 2021, 1.2% of the population (close to 78 000 people) in Flanders received a social assistance benefit under one of the applicable acts (see Figure 3.14). In international comparison, the social assistance scheme covers a relatively small fringe of the population because unemployment benefits are relatively generous (De Wilde et al., 2017[51]; OECD, 2022[54]). Even though the Belgian unemployment benefit system is difficult to access, once individuals are in receipt, there are fewer conditions imposed in terms of availability requirements or accepting job offers to continue receiving benefits (OECD, 2020[55]). Moreover, new arrivals, often cannot meet the eligibility criteria for an unemployment benefit. To receive an unemployment benefit in Belgium, one needs to have worked a certain number of days (468 days, or approximately 67 weeks, over a reference period of 117 weeks), be available for the labour market and actively seek work and be registered as a job seeker with the PES.
Due to the specific situation of recent immigrants and the design of the unemployment benefit scheme, the share of immigrants in social assistance in Flanders is relatively high in international comparison (Immervoll, Jenkins and Königs, 2015[56]). Figure 3.14 shows that, in 2021, 55% of the social assistance beneficiaries in Flanders were non-nationals, and 16% were refugees. Due to high asylum inflows in 2015 and after that, the refugee share has risen considerably, coming from 5% in 2008. The rate of social assistance benefit receipt in the total population was also much higher among non-EU nationals (17% in 2021) than among EU nationals (1.3%) and Belgian nationals (0.6%).
Note: Total population. The analysis uses nationality as the Federal Public Service for Social Integration does not have data by country of birth.
Source: OECD Secretariat based on Federal Public Service for Social Integration data.
Newly arrived immigrants can apply for social assistance benefits from the moment they move into a house in a specific municipality. The PCSW have one month to process the application. Next, a meeting with the migrant is arranged, and a social worker is appointed to provide guidance and counselling. The bureaucratic burden and waiting lists are often mentioned as practical obstacles (European Migration Network, 2016[57]). Sometimes, immigrants must wait several weeks before a social worker is appointed, a meeting is arranged, and a residence check takes place. Long handling times of the application for social assistance benefits can result in severe financial difficulties for migrants during the initial period after arrival (De Wilde et al., 2017[51]). As was evidenced by the OECD field mission, the high caseload social workers often must manage, especially in larger cities, is an important bottleneck in this regard.
Non-EU immigrants and refugees not only have a higher rate of social assistance receipt, but also longer periods of receipt. Carpentier et al. (2017[58]), using longitudinal data from the Belgian Crossroads Bank for Social Security, examined the labour market trajectories of individuals who entered the social assistance scheme between 2004 and 2005. Their research showed that, controlling for beneficiary characteristics and the local economic context, non-EU immigrants exited from social assistance at a slower pace than EU immigrants and the native-born. Additionally, non-EU immigrants also had a higher propensity to re-enter the social assistance scheme after leaving.
These differences in social assistance trajectories were primarily brought about by variations in the type of exit. Compared to their native-born peers, non-EU-born beneficiaries were less likely to transition from social assistance into activation measures or the unemployment scheme, which were both trajectories that more often led to longer-term exits. In contrast, non-EU immigrants and the native-born had higher transition rates into paid employment, which was a pathway that entailed a high risk of re-entry into social assistance. The researchers showed that taking part in an activation measure was often followed by either employment or a period of unemployment with a low likelihood of re-entry (see also FPS Employment and Unia (2019[59])). In Belgium, the right to unemployment benefits is typically indefinite in duration, hence exits from unemployment were also relatively durable. On the other hand, employment following social assistance was frequently of an insecure and unattractive nature, causing many to return to social assistance after a short period in work (Carpentier, Neels and Van den Bosch, 2017[58]).
Immigrants “integrate out of” social assistance, yet receipt continues to be high many years after immigration
According to international research (Hammarstedt, 2009[60]; Hansen and Lofstrom, 2003[61]; Bratsberg, Raaum and Røed, 2014[62]) and research for Flanders (Carpentier and Schoumaker, 2018[63]; Carpentier, 2016[52]), social assistance benefits are a vital source of income for immigrants during their first years in a new country. Over time, once they enter the labour market in larger numbers, immigrants typically “integrate out of” social assistance receipt.
Focussing on the 2005-15 settlement cohort, Figure 3.15 confirms that social assistance receipt peaked one year after arrival (at 31%) for male humanitarian migrants and two years after arrival (at 26%) for females and started to decline thereafter. However, migrant women stayed longer in social assistance than men, signalling the former’s poorer labour market attachment. After ten years, 11% of the women were still in receipt of social assistance, compared to 5% of the men.
Note: Permanent migrants (aged 20 to 59 at arrival) who settled in Flanders between 2005 and 2015 and who migrated for humanitarian reasons.
Source: OECD Secretariat calculations based on the MIA panel (for further information, see Chapter 4).
As in other OECD countries, Flanders extended different types of support and assistance to new arrivals from Ukraine, including providing emergency shelter, social assistance, as well as ensuring access to health services and integration measures. On 7 March 2022, the Flemish Government set up the Flemish Taskforce Ukraine to manage the co-ordination of the refugee challenge. This task force consists of the leading civil servants (and their representatives) of the relevant Flemish policy areas, including housing, social welfare, integration, work, and education.
Reception and housing
As in most receiving countries, ensuring access to housing has been one of the main challenges in Flanders. The rapid influx of Ukrainian refugees soon exhausted existing reception facilities, especially as the numbers of other asylum arrivals was also high in 2022 (for further discussion, see Chapter 2). Ukrainians receiving a temporary protection status and indicating a reception need (around 27% of the total) are housed for a few nights in the emergency shelter “Ariane”, organised by Fedasil. Due to the high occupancy rate in the emergency shelter, Fedasil is only able to accommodate families with young children for the time being. After an initial reception period, Fedasil tries to move refugees on to the available public and private housing opportunities at the local level, a procedure which is becoming more and more difficult due to a lack of accommodation places.
As in other European OECD countries, Flanders at least initially relied heavily upon the willingness of private citizens to host refugees in their homes. Building on a wave of solidarity among Belgian citizens after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, the State Secretary for Migration launched a campaign called “#Plekvrij” (Free Space) to look for emergency housing for Ukrainian refugees. A screening procedure was developed for receiving families. To map out reception places, the Flemish Government launched a ‘housing tool’ consisting of a central database in which all the reception addresses are recorded. By 1 April, the Flemish Government, together with the local authorities, managed to create 18 000 reception places. It was estimated that the share of Ukrainian refugees in temporary private accommodation reached 85-90% in Belgium in the first months of the crisis (OECD, 2022[64]).
As private accommodation is mostly a short-term solution, the transition to more durable housing for Ukrainian refugees is a looming challenge, especially in the Flemish context of significant pre-existing housing constraints. Therefore, the Flemish Parliament temporarily eased quality standards in the rental regime, allocated vacant social spaces suitable for collective housing (such as monasteries and hospitals) and tasked Flemish Social Housing Society (Vlaamse Maatschappij voor Sociaal Wonen) with the preparation of mobile housing units. Additionally, the government built two emergency villages (Nooddorpen) in the cities of Mechelen and Ghent. The aim was to realise 30 000 reception places by the end of 2022.
Based on the number of registrations in the National Register, the Flemish Government subsidises cities and municipalities EUR 180, 180 and 120 per Ukrainian refugee in June, September, and December, respectively (estimated at a total of EUR 3.5 million end of June). Additionally, flat-rate (EUR 400-1 000) and daily (EUR 15-180) subsidies are provided per public reception location, with the amount depending on the type of reception location.
Developing housing solutions for children arriving from Ukraine unaccompanied or separated (accompanied by adults other than their parents) is an area of particular focus. Until 22 November, 1 096 unaccompanied minors had been recorded, 81% of them between 12-17 years old. To quickly complete a larger volume of screening and matching to be able to accommodate Ukrainian children in foster families, the capacity of foster care services in Flanders has been temporarily strengthened.
Access to assistance and public services
Flanders has additionally taken measures to mitigate the risk of social and economic exclusion of refugees from Ukraine and to assist them in meeting their basic needs. Compared to other receiving OECD countries, measures in Flanders are relatively generous – providing Ukrainian refugees with almost the same offer as other refugees.
Ukrainians with temporary protection have full access to healthcare services and when they join a health insurance fund, they are entitled to increased reimbursements. Through so-called “care points”, Flemish authorities additionally provide initial medical care to refugees from Ukraine before they have access to the regular healthcare system, including screening for/vaccination against tuberculosis, COVID-19, measles, mumps, rubella and diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis. Flanders has also recognised the need to provide mental health support. Both the Centres for General Welfare (Centra Algemeen Welzijnswerk, CAW), a first-line organisation that offers psychosocial support, and the Centres for Mental health care (Centra voor Geestelijke Gezondheidszorg, CGG), an organisation that offers specialised mental health care, have received additional funding to assist Ukrainian refugees.
Finally, upon registration with a municipality, Ukrainian refugees with a temporary protection status are entitled to social assistance. If they meet all the requirements, they can apply for an equivalent social assistance benefit and other social benefits from the PCSW of their main residence. In addition, Ukrainian families who live in Flanders are entitled to child benefits (Groeipakket). On the 10th of August 2022, 9 216 unique Ukrainian minors were entitled to and received a child benefit.
Access to integration measures
As discussed above, Flanders’ civic integration programme for new arrivals includes Dutch language training, civic orientation courses, a trajectory to work, and – from January 2023 onwards – a network and participation trajectory. Contrary to other refugees, refugees from Ukraine under temporary protection are entitled but not obliged to participate in the programme.
To facilitate the swift integration of high numbers of refugees from Ukraine, the Flemish Government set up an introductory civic integration trajectory. Integration agencies receive additional funding for the organisation of modularised and easily accessible information sessions in the Ukrainian language. Like the introduction that asylum seekers receive from the reception centres during their asylum procedure, these sessions focus on an introduction to Flemish culture and society, including essential rights, duties, values, and norms. During (mostly online) sessions, the most urgent and important questions are answered to guide Ukrainian refugees and help on their way for their stay in Flanders. Until 21 August 2022, 7 320 unique people have registered for one of these information sessions.
Ukrainian refugees also have access to publicly funded Dutch L2 training. Like for other new arrivals, integration agencies offer advice on the number of hours of Dutch language training to Ukrainian refugees, based on an intake. On the 21st of August 2022, 7 861 Ukrainians had participated in a Dutch L2 intake. The Agency for Home Affairs is currently co-ordinating together with the integration agencies to map out the possibilities for a medium- and long-term response to Ukrainian refugees’ integration needs.
Source: Flemish Government (2022[65]) ; https://www.vlaanderen.be/vlaanderen-helpt-oekraine; https://www.vvsg.be/kennisitem/vvsg/vluchtelingen-uit-oekraine.
References
[7] Agency for Integration and Civic Integration (2022), Jaarverslag Agentschap Integratie en Inburgering 2021. Strategisch plan 2021-2025, https://www.vlaanderen.be/publicaties/jaarverslag-agentschap-integratie-en-inburgering.
[19] Ahmad-Yar, A. (2020), Migrant integration policies at the local level in Belgium Beyond the narratives: Unraveling the European Pact on Migration View project Migration Policies at the Local Level: The Case of Belgian Municipalities View project, https://www.ceps.eu/ceps-publications/migrant-integration-policies-at-the-local-level-in-belgium/.
[28] Andersson, E. et al. (2018), “A Comparative Study of Segregation Patterns in Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden: Neighbourhood Concentration and Representation of Non-European Migrants”, European Journal of Population, Vol. 34/2, pp. 251-275, https://doi.org/10.1007/S10680-018-9481-5/TABLES/6.
[47] Bakker, L., S. Cheung and J. Phillimore (2016), “The asylum-integration paradox: Comparing asylum support systems and refugee integration in the Netherlands and the UK”, International Migration, Vol. 54/4, pp. 118-132, https://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12251.
[37] Beeckmans, L. and D. Geldof (2022), “Reconsidering the interrupted housing pathways of refugees in Flanders (Belgium) from a home-making perspective: a policy critique”, Housing Studies, pp. 1-23, https://doi.org/10.1080/02673037.2022.2102155.
[62] Bratsberg, B., O. Raaum and K. Røed (2014), “Immigrants, Labour Market Performance and Social Insurance”, The Economic Journal, Vol. 124/580, pp. F644-F683, https://doi.org/10.1111/ecoj.12182.
[18] Briones Alonso, E., J. Van Ongevalle and P. De Cuyper (2022), Procesevaluatie proeftuinen vierde pijler inburgering, HIVA-KUL, https://kuleuven.limo.libis.be/discovery/search?query=any,contains,lirias3751358&tab=LIRIAS&search_scope=lirias_profile&vid=32KUL_KUL:Lirias&foolmefull=1.
[52] Carpentier, S. (2016), Lost in Transition? Essays on the Socio-Economic Trajectories of Social Assistance Beneficiaries in Belgium, Universiteit Antwerpen, Antwerpen, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312835582_Lost_in_Transition_Essays_on_the_Socio-Economic_Trajectories_of_Social_Assistance_Beneficiaries_in_Belgium.
[58] Carpentier, S., K. Neels and K. Van den Bosch (2017), “Exit from and re-entry into social assistance benefit in Belgium among people with migration background and the native-born”, International Journal of Social Welfare, Vol. 26/4, pp. 366-383, https://doi.org/10.1111/ijsw.12270.
[63] Carpentier, S. and B. Schoumaker (2018), Socio-demographic profile and socio-economic careers of people granted international protection in Belgium, 2001-2014, https://emnbelgium.be/main-themes/asylum/international-protection.
[30] Costa, R. and H. De Valk (2018), “Ethnic and Socioeconomic Segregation in Belgium: A Multiscalar Approach Using Individualised Neighbourhoods”, Eur J Population, Vol. 34, pp. 225-250, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10680.
[34] Dagnelie, O., A. Mayda and J. Maystadt (2019), “The labor market integration of refugees in the United States: Do entrepreneurs in the network help?”, European Economic Review, Vol. 111, pp. 257-272, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2018.10.001.
[6] De Cuyper, P., M. Lambert and F. Pauwels (2010), De efficiëntie, effectiviteit en impact van het Vlaamse inburgeringsbeleid geëvalueerd, https://kuleuven.limo.libis.be/discovery/search?query=any,contains,lirias1897877&tab=LIRIAS&search_scope=lirias_profile&vid=32KUL_KUL:Lirias&foolmefull=1.
[35] De Decker, P. et al. (2015), Woonnood in Vlaanderen.: Feiten/mythen/voorstellen, Maklu.
[10] De Paepe, L., C. Zhu and K. Depryck (2018), “Online Dutch L2 learning in adult education: educators’ and providers’ viewpoints on needs, advantages and disadvantages”, Open Learning: The Journal of Open, Distance and e-Learning, Vol. 33/1, pp. 18-33, https://doi.org/10.1080/02680513.2017.1414586.
[51] De Wilde, M. et al. (eds.) (2017), 40 jaar OCMW & bijstand, Acco, Antwerp.
[11] Droogmans, A., K. Jordens and C. Maes (2016), Op zoek naar een inburgeringstraject dat klikt. Onderzoek naar digitale geletterdheid bij laaggeletterde anderstalige nieuwkomers., Centrum voor Taal en Onderwijs & HIVA, Leuven, https://www.arts.kuleuven.be/cto/onderzoek/onderzoek-geletterdheid/op-zoek-naar-een-inburgeringstraject-dat-klikt.
[48] El Moussawi, H. and N. Schuermans (2021), “From Asylum to Post-Arrival Geographies: Syrian and Iraqi Refugees in Belgium”, Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Vol. 112/2, pp. 164-178, https://doi.org/10.1111/tesg.12469.
[57] European Migration Network (2016), Integration of beneficiaries of international protection into the labour market in Belgium, https://emnbelgium.be/publication/integration-beneficiaries-international-protection-labour-market-belgium-and-eu-emn.
[46] Fedasil (2019), Asylum Procedure.
[3] Flemish Educational Council (2021), Vlaams integratie- en inburgeringsbeleid. Advies over het voorontwerp van decreet tot wijziging van het decreet van 7 juni 2013 betreffende het Vlaamse integratie- en inburgeringsbeleid, http://www.vlor.be.
[65] Flemish Government (2022), Vlaanderen helpt Oekraïne. Eerste uitvoeringsrapportering september 2022, https://www.vlaanderen.be/vlaanderen-helpt-oekraine/taskforce-oekraine (accessed on 22 November 2022).
[59] FPS Employment and Unia (2019), Socio-Economische Monitoring 2019: labour market and origin, https://werk.belgie.be/nl/publicaties/socio-economische-monitoring-2019-arbeidsmarkt-en-origine.
[45] Geldof, D., L. D’eer and L. Robeyns (2019), “Before you can make a home, you need to find a house: how volunteers support refugees in Flanders in the search for houses and/or homes”, in Gola, A., A. Singh and A. Singh (eds.), Displacement & domesticity since 1945: refugees, migrants and expats making homes.
[33] Gsir, S. (2010), “Housing and segregation of migrants: Antwerp in Belgium”, in Fassmann, H. and Y. Franz (eds.), Integration policies at the local level: Housing policies for migrants, Austrian Academy of Sciences Press, Vienna.
[60] Hammarstedt, M. (2009), “Assimilation and participation in social assistance among immigrants”, International Journal of Social Welfare, Vol. 18/1, pp. 85-94, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2397.2008.00555.x.
[61] Hansen, J. and M. Lofstrom (2003), “Immigrant Assimilation and Welfare Participation”, Journal of Human Resources, Vol. XXXVIII/1, pp. 74-98, https://doi.org/10.3368/jhr.XXXVIII.1.74.
[4] Hooft, H. et al. (2020), Laaggeletteredheid bij volwassen nieuwkomers in de Belgische asielopvang. Een verkennende analyse, https://www.arts.kuleuven.be/cto/onderzoek/onderzoek-geletterdheid/laaggeletterdheid-bij-nieuwkomers-in-de-opvang (accessed on 6 June 2022).
[31] Imeraj, L., D. Willaert and H. de Valk (2018), “A comparative approach towards ethnic segregation patterns in Belgian cities using multiscalar individualized neighborhoods”, Urban Geography, Vol. 39/8, pp. 1221-1246, https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2018.1446584.
[50] Immervoll, H. (2010), “Minimum-Income Benefits in OECD Countries: Policy Design, Effectiveness and Challenges”, OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers, No. 100, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/218402763872.
[56] Immervoll, H., S. Jenkins and S. Königs (2015), “Are Recipients of Social Assistance ’Benefit Dependent’?: Concepts, Measurement and Results for Selected Countries”, OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers, No. 162, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/5jxrcmgpc6mn-en.
[27] Jayet, H. et al. (2016), “Immigrants’ location choice in Belgium”, Annals of Regional Science, Vol. 57/1, pp. 63-89, https://doi.org/10.1007/S00168-016-0761-X/TABLES/8.
[26] Liebig, T. and G. Spielvogel (2021), “Residential segregation of immigrants: Patterns, drivers, effects and policy responses”, in International Migration Outlook 2021, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/33eaff32-en.
[24] Meeus, J. and P. De Cuyper (2015), De NT2-trajecten van inburgeraars in kaart gebracht, HIVA, Leuven, http://www.steunpuntieni.be.
[23] Miltenburg, E. and J. Dagevos (2021), “Looking Beyond Employment: Participation Profiles of Syrian Refugees in the Netherlands”, International Migration, Vol. 59/4, pp. 59-73, https://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12785.
[49] Mussche, N., V. Corluy and I. Marx (2013), Migrant access to social security – policy and practice in Belgium. Study for the Belgian national contact point of the European Migration Network (EMN)., European Migration Network, Brussels, https://emnbelgium.be/publication/migrant-access-social-security-policy-and-practice-belgium-and-eu-emn (accessed on 1 December 2022).
[40] Noppe, J. et al. (2018), Vlaamse Migratie en Integratiemonitor, http://www.samenleven-in-diversiteit.vlaanderen.be.
[1] OECD (2023), Introduction Measures for Newly-Arrived Migrants, Making Integration Work, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/5aeddbfe-en.
[64] OECD (2022), International Migration Outlook 2022, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/30fe16d2-en.
[36] OECD (2022), OECD Economic Surveys: Belgium 2022, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/01c0a8f0-en.
[54] OECD (2022), OECD Social Benefit Recipients Database, https://www.oecd.org/els/soc/recipients-socr-by-country.htm (accessed on 30 September 2022).
[9] OECD (2021), Making Integration Work: Language Training for Adult Migrants, Making Integration Work, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/02199d7f-en.
[55] OECD (2020), The Future for Low-Educated Workers in Belgium, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/0140a728-en.
[8] OECD (2018), Skills on the Move: Migrants in the Survey of Adult Skills, OECD Skills Studies, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264307353-en.
[20] OECD (2017), Making Integration Work: Family Migrants, Making Integration Work, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264279520-en.
[25] OECD (2016), Making Integration Work: Refugees and others in need of protection, Making Integration Work, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264251236-en.
[17] Pulinx, R. (2016), Sociale netwerken en inburgering. Een explorerend onderzoek naar het zichtbaar maken van de sociale netwerken van nieuwkomers, https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/8532486.
[16] Reidsma, M. and P. De Cuyper (2021), Buddyprogramma’s voor anderstalige nieuwkomers. Inspiratie uit de organisatie van buddyprogramma’s in drie landen., https://hiva.kuleuven.be/nl/nieuws/nieuwsitems/working-paper-buddyprogrammas-voor-anderstalige-nieuwkomers.
[29] Rogne, A. et al. (2020), “Neighbourhood Concentration and Representation of Non-European Migrants: New Results from Norway”, European Journal of Population, Vol. 36/1, pp. 71-83, https://doi.org/10.1007/S10680-019-09522-3/FIGURES/2.
[43] Saeys, A., R. Vandevoordt and G. Verschraegen (2018), Samenleven in diversiteit: kwalitatief onderzoek naar de perspectieven van vluchtelingen, https://repository.uantwerpen.be/desktop/irua.
[32] Schillebeeckx, E. (2019), Aankomstwijken in Vlaanderen: een onderzoek naar gelokaliseerde bronnen voor het aankomst- en transitieproces van migranten, University of Antwerp - Catholic University of Leuven, https://kuleuven.limo.libis.be/discovery/search?query=any,contains,lirias2344288&tab=LIRIAS&search_scope=lirias_profile&vid=32KUL_KUL:Lirias&foolmefull=1&&lang=en.
[2] Social and Economic Council of Flanders (2021), Wijzigingsdecreet Vlaams integratie- en inburgeringsbeleid, http://www.serv.be/diversiteit.
[13] Social and Economic Council of Flanders (2016), Advies Vluchtelingen, https://www.serv.be/sites/default/files/documenten/COM_DIV_20160525_Vluchtelingen_ADV_0.pdf (accessed on 20 September 2022).
[39] Unia (2014), Diversiteitsbarometer Huisvesting, https://www.unia.be/nl/publicaties-statistieken/publicaties/diversiteitsbarometer-huisvesting.
[41] Van den Broucke, S., K. Heylen and J. Wets (2015), Woonsituatie van personen met een migratieachtergrond in Vlaanderen, Steunpunt Inburgering en Integratie, Antwerp, http://www.steunpuntieni.be.
[38] Van der Bracht, K., A. Coenen and B. Van de Putte (2014), “The Not-in-My-Property Syndrome: The Occurrence of Ethnic Discrimination in the Rental Housing Market in Belgium”, https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2014.913476, Vol. 41/1, pp. 158-175, https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2014.913476.
[12] Van Hoof, S., S. Nyssen and S. Kanobana (2020), ““If they could, they would put them on a drip with Dutch”: Language learning and the professional integration of migrants in Flanders”, International Journal of the Sociology of Language, Vol. 2020/264, pp. 73-94, https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2020-2094.
[21] Van Hoye, G. et al. (2019), “Specific job search self‐efficacy beliefs and behaviors of unemployed ethnic minority women”, International Journal of Selection and Assessment, Vol. 27/1, pp. 9-20, https://doi.org/10.1111/ijsa.12231.
[53] Van Mechelen, N. and S. Marchal (2013), “Struggle for Life: Social Assistance Benefits, 1992–2009”, in Minimum Income Protection in Flux, Palgrave Macmillan UK, London, https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137291844_2.
[44] Vandevoordt, R. and G. Verschraegen (2019), “Eroding Rights, Crafting Solidarity? Shifting Dynamics in the State-Civil Society Nexus in Flanders and Brussels”, Social Inclusion, Vol. 7, pp. 106-117, https://doi.org/10.17645/si.v7i2.2010.
[5] Vansteenkiste, S. and P. De Graeve (2018), De arbeidsmarktintegratie van asielzoekers in Vlaanderen, Steunpunt Werk, Leuven, https://www.steunpuntwerk.be/publicaties/de-arbeidsmarktintegratie-van-asielzoekers-in-vlaanderen.
[15] VDAB (2021), Vijf voor taal, https://www.vdab.be/sites/web/files/pers/vijfvoortaal.pdf (accessed on 20 October 2022).
[14] VDAB (2017), Programme ‘Integration through work’. Action plan 2017, https://www.vdab.be/sites/web/files/doc/vluchtelingen/Integration%20through%20work.pdf (accessed on 13 October 2022).
[22] Vervaet, V. and N. Geens (2016), Draaiboek AMIF project ’Inburgering op maat van laaggeletterde vrouwen met jonge kinderen’, https://www.expoo.be/draaiboek-amif-project-inburgering-op-maat-van-laaggeletterde-vrouwen-met-jonge-kinderen (accessed on 14 October 2022).
[42] Wyckaert, E., H. Leinfelder and P. De Decker (2020), “Stuck in the middle: the transition from shelter to housing for refugees in Belgium”, Transactions of the Association of European Schools of Planning, Vol. 4/1, pp. 80-94, https://doi.org/10.24306/traesop.2020.01.007.
Notes
← 1. This report uses “time since settlement” to refer to “time since being extracted from the National Register”.
← 2. The term “humanitarian migrant” refers to asylum seekers who are more than four months into the asylum procedure and persons who successfully applied for asylum and have been granted some form of protection. For the sake of simplicity, the report considers all recipients of protection – be it refugee status, subsidiary, or temporary protection – to be humanitarian migrants, given that the groups benefit from similar integration measures.
← 3. The integration agency decides cases of limited learning abilities involving civic orientation, and the Centres for Adult Education decide cases involving Dutch L2.
← 4. See https://www.vlaanderen.be/taalwetwijzer/.
← 5. The new scale consists of six language levels based on the CEFR (no knowledge/starter (A1), basic (A2), intermediate (A2+/B1), good (B1+), and very good (B2/C2)), instead of the current four (none, limited, good, very good).
← 6. The multivariate analyses of this chapter use Cox proportional hazards regression models. The advantage of the event history approach is that it allows to take right-censored cases into account and avoid bias caused by cases who were at risk for less than the maximum observation period. The Cox proportional hazards regression has the additional benefit of making no assumption about the baseline transition rate. It is a so-called semiparametric event-history analysis model in that it is fully flexible regarding the underlying distribution of, here, the transition into civic integration events, but the ratio of the probability of transition between individuals with different values of included variables is constant over the entire process. As our main interest is the direction and strength of the covariate effects on the event occurrence (not the duration), the Cox regression is appropriate.
← 7. Formal Dutch language acquisition is measured at an ordinal scale (no level, A1, A2, B1 or higher) and hence ordered logistic regression is applicable.
← 8. As part of the broader initiative to enhance language learning at higher levels for low-educated newcomers, from 2023 on, the CABE will be able to provide oral/written training at level B1, which was previously only offered at the CAE.
← 9. In the Spatial Structure Plan of the Flemish Government, the term “centre city” refers to cities with a relatively high number of inhabitants, which perform a central function in the areas of employment, care, education, and culture, amongst other things.
← 10. At the initial stage, the social assistance benefit is the most important. However, clients can also apply for a one-time installation allowance, a prepayment on family benefits and compensation for medical costs as long there is no health insurance. Once the application for social assistance has been approved, clients can also apply for other social benefits such as a social pass for public transportation, culture vouchers, a social tariff for gas and electricity, or financial compensation for educational courses.
← 11. Public Centres for Social Welfare have fewer financial incentives to support people under this Act to exit from social assistance, as the federal government fully reimburses their social assistance benefit.