Has multiculturalism failed? Based on their research commissioned by the GLA, Compas researchers Ben Gidley and Hiranthi Jayaweera reflect on how to support integration of migrants in London
The topic of migrant integration is a complex and controversial one, as can be seen in the wide range of responses to the recent speech by Prime Minister David Cameron arguing that state multiculturalism has failed in Britain. These topics are particularly pressing issue in London. The capital is a point of arrival for so many migrants and, as our successful bid to host the 2012 Olympics put it, “the world in one city”. What can London do to support the integration of migrants?
For COMPAS, integration involves engagement by both migrants and by individuals and institutions of the receiving society. It is a series of dynamic multi-dimensional two-way processes of interaction and participation which begin the moment someone arrives in a place, whether they are staying for months or for life. They occur in different domains, economic, social, cultural, civic and in relation to identity, each of which is related and which need to be considered together and not in isolation. Different legal frameworks for migrants’ rights and entitlements, as well different national, regional and local policies, and the tone of political debate on migration, can impact positively or negatively on these processes.
Last year, COMPAS was commissioned by the Greater London Authority to pull together the evidence on immigration and integration in London. The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has identified a number of key areas central to integration processes: language, housing, the economy, health and social care, safety and cohesion, and children and young people. In our report for the GLA we looked at each of these in turn, and here we summarise the evidence we found.
Language
For the mayor, English language is a key priority. The evidence confirms this: it underlines the fact that language acquisition is absolutely central to integration, but not sufficient alone. There is significant resource allocation to ESOL in London, but also huge unmet demand. The evidence is not clear on what works best and what provides value for money. Some elements, however, stand out: access to classes in places and at times migrants can attend, rooting of programmes in local communities, enhancing pedagogy by building in personal and community development, good contacts with employers, and gearing learning towards facilitating integration processes, including labour force integration and social interaction. Clearly, this is a priority area for London, and becoming more important as sources of ESOL funding are reduced in the capital.
Housing
The available evidence shows that widespread perceptions of asylum seekers and other migrants jumping the housing queue are unfounded: migrants have limited access to social housing and are concentrated in the private rented sector. Perceptions of migrants jumping the housing queue are related to wider shortages in the housing market. Migrants are also more vulnerable to homelessness and to poor accommodation conditions in the rented sector.
Economy
At a national and regional level migrants contribute positively to the economy and to income levels, while at the local level in areas where there is a low skills base (as in the more deprived parts of the capital) migration may have a slight negative impact on job vacancies and wages. Overall migrant employment rates do not differ considerably from non-migrants, but some groups are disproportionately unemployed or under-employed due to barriers to full labour market participation, while others face high levels of exploitation and vulnerability in the labour market. Action on exploitation and vulnerability is therefore required, as is the right sort of employment support for the most disadvantaged.
Health and social care
Migrants face health inequalities because of the barriers they experience in access to health care, including restrictions on their entitlements, institutional barriers, language barriers and (for irregular migrants) avoidance of contact with officialdom. Underpinning many of these is a lack of clarity around entitlements, on behalf of both migrants and health professionals.
Safety and cohesion
The evidence on community safety and community cohesion points towards the need for policy intervention around reframing the immigration debate, and tackling negative public perceptions of new migrants, through a strategy that is sensitive to local issues, takes people’s concerns seriously, and considers the potential capacity of the media, especially local media, to make a positive difference. The Mayor and GLA group, with a leadership role in the capital, have the potential to be central to this.
Children and young people
One in ten Londoners under 16 was born abroad, including 10 per cent of the A8 population. There is some evidence of barriers to accessing education. There are examples of good practice on working with refugee children, but examples for non-refugee migrant children are less well-known. There are 5000 unaccompanied asylum seeking children in the capital, and estimated 111,000 children in undocumented migrant households (including 61,000 UK-born). COMPAS will be publishing research on London’s undocumented children later this year.
Community development is key to migrant integration across a number of domains, including the work of migrant and refugee community organisations and the work of mainstream community development providers. Evidence shows that a number of stakeholders have ability, skills and experience to offer migrant integration, including local authorities, the voluntary and community sector, community development organisations across sectors (and especially locally embedded community anchor organisations), as well as trade unions and employers; these remain to be fully mobilised.
As well as the mayor’s integration themes we have summarised, the GLA has identified a number of cross-cutting themes, equal life chances for all and partnership working: key strategic issues cutting across the Mayor’s core themes. Partnership working is essential in facilitating integration processes across the domains of integration. A framework of equal life chances is also central; achieving this means balancing the universal entitlements to which all migrants have a right, regardless of status, with a sense of fairness at the local level. The restriction of entitlements may have negative impacts on integration and a long-term negative effect beyond the sphere of integration, for instance on the public purse, but there is a need for more systematic evidence on this.
Building on this evidence base, COMPAS identified a number of areas where intervention from the GLA and its partners could be targeted. Some of these are being taken forward in the Year 2 implementation plan of the GLA’s integration strategy, London Enriched, which is due to be published soon.
Some interventions could productively be aimed at migrants themselves. London needs targeted ESOL provision, based on review of the available evidence and on best practice, at the times and in the locations best suited for those who most need it. There is a need for clear information and advice on entitlements to housing, health and other social goods and on responsibilities. There is a case for targeted employment support, based on best practice, focusing on skills, employment sustainability and combating under-employment. Evidence based planning is required for health needs of migrant populations, particularly in mental health and maternity care. Supporting both migrant community organisations and the involvement of migrants in mainstream community and civic structures is another priority.
Other interventions could be usefully aimed at structures or agencies in the receiving society. This includes robust regulation of standards in private rented sector housing and in the areas of employment where migrants are concentrated, based on the use of existing regulatory frameworks and the promotion of best practice through kitemarking. It includes focusing cohesion and public communication in areas of the labour and housing market where migration impacts are likely to be felt: low skills areas and outer city ‘new contact zones’. It includes identifying pathways back to legality for undocumented migrants, and the promotion of a living wage for all Londoners – areas where both the current and last mayor of London have shown considerable leadership. Other possibilities include a strong communication strategy around migration including sophisticated myth-busting, and harnessing the potential of partners in civil society, including businesses, the media and trade unions, to facilitate integration.
The context for this debate, however, is a time of great challenges for London, with the spending cuts affecting migrant community organisations in the capital, and with leaders in the capital having to respond to central government pressure to cap the numbers of skilled migrants and international students that drive London’s economy.
The challenge of global migration in the capital
Migration to the UK today is significantly different from that in previous periods, due both to global features and to the expansion of the European Union, although the migration flows of workers from the new EU states peaked in 2007 and have been declining since then.
There are a number of different categories of migrant in London today, including refugees and asylum seekers who only make up a small proportion of London's migrant stock and of new residents, but also labour migrants, family reunion migrants, overseas students and irregular migrants, who can face different but also similar barriers to integration. There are also key differences between ‘old’ and ‘new’ migrants – the former arriving with Empire and Commonwealth connections to meet post-war labour demand or for family reunification, the latter associated more often with the labour market demand in the economic growth period from the early 1990s to 2008. Many in the former category have entitlements similar to those of the UK-born population.
London is a city of contrasts, and London’s migration picture is characterised by polarity: many at the top end of the scale in terms of income and skills, and many among the most disadvantaged. This was illustrated earlier this year, when the London Evening Standard reported that the city came out first in research published by the OpenCities project on how open global cities are to valuable international migrants – and on the same day reported on migrants from India so destitute they sleep at night in the rubbish bins of a West London housing estate.
Although much of the literature on integration focuses on the more disadvantaged, it should not be assumed that those at the top end are able to participate fully at all levels. There has been less policy attention so far on the integration of some groups who can face significant challenges: low skilled workers, family migrants, irregular migrants and students. Key groups for policy intervention must include the newly arrived and the most disadvantaged.
London’s demographic landscape
London stands out from the rest of the UK in a number of key ways. In terms of stock (the numbers of migrants – those born outside the UK including those resident in the UK for many years), London has a larger migrant population than the rest of the UK: 34 per cent of London’s resident population. A quarter of these migrants arrived in the last five years. Among recent migrants, the overwhelming majority are of working age. London’s migrant population is both younger and longer established than the migrant population in the rest of the UK.
Large proportions of London’s migrants, particularly from the New Commonwealth, have British nationality, demonstrating their settled residence here. But migrants from EU15/EEA countries including Accession (A8 and A2) countries are less likely to have become UK nationals. The peak period of arrival in the UK for the migrants with permanent residency now in London was the 1990s and early 2000s, dropping off since then.
Comparing London’s migrants with the whole of the capital’s population, the migrant population is younger than the total population in London, especially in inner London. Migrants in London are more likely to be married or cohabiting, with dependent children, than are all residents in London.
Within London, there are key differences from borough to borough and between inner and outer London. There is a varied pattern of population turnover at borough level but generally internal population changes are high compared to international turnover, with most inner London boroughs experiencing especially high internal and international churn. All boroughs have seen an increase in proportions of non-UK born people within the population stock in the past four years, but in (mainly outer) boroughs with lower population turnover – London’s “new contact zones” – this change may appear more evident.
Migrants make up a greater share of the resident population in inner London (40 per cent) than in outer London (30 per cent). In Westminster, Newham and Brent, over 50 per cent of the population is born outside the UK. However, nearly half of the migrant population in Brent, and over a third in Newham and Westminster have British nationality. Overall, around two fifths of migrants resident in London have British nationality.
These articles summarise research we conducted at COMPAS (Oxford University’s Centre on Migration, Policy and Society) to provide the Greater London Authority with an evidence base on migration and migrant integration in London. For the report, published late last year and available at the GLA’s website, we brought together the most up to date available information we could find to describe the situation for migrants in London. This summary represents the analysis developed by the researchers at COMPAS, and does not represent an official view of the GLA.
