The Immigrant Citizens Survey, led by the King Baudouin Foundation and MPG alongside partners in seven countries, has set an example that researchers are interested to use and follow.
Most recently, David Reichel (ICMPD) and Laura Morales (University of Leicester) presented the survey to the European Survey Research Association (ESRA) conference in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Their presentation and working paper shows how ICS was able to survey immigrants with mixed methods and without a sample frame. Check out David Reichel’s external evaluation report for further insights on the ICS method.
A reminder to researchers out there; the ICS data is publically available for you in SPSS format so take advantage of ICS’ unique migrant-specific variables and questions. New results are published as the data is exploited by researchers, including those at MPG. The EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency has also welcomed the survey and disseminated the results.
Hard-to-reach groups such as immigrants are usually under-represented in surveys and official statistics. As such, the opinions and experiences of immigrants are often missing in public debate. With ICS, MPG and its partners sought out immigrants in 15 large cities in Europe and asked about their needs and interests in the seven integration policy areas measured by MIPEX and thus test the relevance of the tool. ICS also tested whether a targeted survey of immigrants could overcome these methodological obstacles and set a best practice model, which could lead to more targeted surveys (e.g. EU Fundamental Rights’ Agency’s EU-MIDIS survey) or a better inclusion of immigrants in Europe’s major public opinion surveys (e.g. Labour Force Survey or European Social Survey).
