Social cohesion and immigrants

The nature of the relationship between a host society and its immigrant population is a critical factor in integration. If such social cohesion is strong, it will promote integration. If it is weak, immigrants will find it harder to fit in. Social cohesion is hard to measure but can, however, be estimated from certain kinds of information produced by satisfaction surveys.Discrimination against immigrants is one factor that can have a deeply adverse impact on social cohesion, thought its real extent is hard to quantify. It is essential to measure discrimination on the grounds of ethnicity, race or nationality, however, because it undermines immigrants’ willingness to invest in education and training, which are the best ways to improve the integration process. Opinion polls are a means of assessing the levels of discrimination that immigrant populations perceive ().Social cohesion can also be measured by analysing the host country’s degree of acceptance of immigration. A high level of acceptance will indirectly promote the conditions for successful integration – if the immigrant population is welcomed, it will be better able to contribute to the life of the community. This report assesses acceptance by gauging public opinion of its perceived impact and with respect to the perceived local conditions for immigrant settlement ().The section entitled Data limitations at the end of the chapter discusses in detail the social cohesion indicators and the issues they raise.