research programme

The research programme of the Centre is structured around the following four themes:

1. Forms of Population Movement and Mobility

Modern population movements can no longer be understood and analysed in terms of common and traditional perceptions of international migration. Research focuses on understanding of population movements by considering current and future forms of international migrations, their relationship to behaviour, and their inter-dependencies with globalisation and new forms of technology and communication. Current research questions include: How do immigrants form their migration and re-migration plans, and how do these react to economic shocks, and interact with adaptation and integration? How is the accumulation of human capital and social capital of immigrants related to return plans? How do return plans affect integration and education of immigrants’ children?

2. The non-migrant experience – effects of migration on importing and exporting countries

Under this theme, we seek to enhance our understanding of the effects of population movement in a globalised economy on importing and exporting countries.
Current research questions include: What are the effects of migration on European labour markets, and in particular on wages and employment? What are the exact mechanisms by which immigration affects employment and wages of non-immigrant workers? Can we empirically distinguish between long term and short term effects? To what extent are the labour inputs of immigrants and non-immigrants in the same skill and education groups substitutable?

3. The migrant experience – Integration, adaptation and exclusion

Research focuses on the processes of integration and exclusion of immigrants, their economic and social adaptation, and how this relates to immigrants' socio-economic characteristics and features of their immediate environment. Research investigates these issues in the context of life cycle decisions and across generations.
Current research questions include: How are immigrants’ social and economic adaptation and integration related to individual characteristics? How do ethnic enclaves affect this process? What is the role of language? What is the rate of upward and downward intergenerational mobility of immigrants, and how do patterns compare across countries? Are there differences in the evolution of employment and wages of immigrants and their response to the economic cycle? What are the mechanisms that determine the adaptation and labour market performance of female immigrants?

4. Perception of migrants within receiving countries: Identity and Aspects of Social Cohesion

Research investigates the interaction of immigrant population with the resident host country community, attitude towards immigrants and refugees, perception and experience of racism and its effect on identity, and association of spatial patterns of racial hostility with patterns of immigrant settlement. Current research questions include: What are the underlying processes that form attitudes towards migration on the side of the receiving population? How important are labour market concerns as compared to racial or cultural attitudes? How are attitudes shaped over the life cycle, and according to which processes? What, if any, is the relationship between abuse and harassment directed at ethnic minorities, local concentration of minority communities and local economic conditions?