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Parties, governments and the integration of immigrants

Lasse Aaskoven (University of Essex)

Ensuring the seamless integration of immigrants into the workforce has been a prominent concern for policy-makers in many developed democracies. High rates of unemployment among immigrants are often thought to put a strain on welfare systems and may fuel anti-immigrant sentiments within societies. In his article “Parties, governments and the integration of immigrants” published in the Journal of European Public Policy, Lasse Aaskoven notes that some administrations must jump higher hurdles than others to foster immigrants’ successful integration into the labour market. He argues that single-party majority governments are in a better position to successfully reduce employment gaps between foreign and native-born workers than multi-party coalitions. An analysis of panel data comprising 28 OECD countries offers evidence that coalition governments’ need to reconcile diverging policy positions on immigration hinders the design of coherent, effective integrational policy packages. Since coalition governments are common across Europe, these findings are a cause for concern, as “party and electoral systems which give rise to multi-party and minority governments might thus indirectly be a non-trivial hindrance for better labor market integration of immigrants within developed democracies.”