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Reimagining demographic categories for inclusive immigrant integration

Author(s): Viivi Eskelinen

Thursday 15  |   11:00-11:20

Room: TP52

Session: Frontiers in segregation research

To facilitate successful immigrant integration in Finland, the new Integration Act (KOTO24) aims to increase the information flow of immigrants among all government officials. One of its central aims is to increase labour market participation and inclusion among immigrants such as stay-at-home mothers, that are (at the risk of being) segregated. The decision to include these groups in this Act has been based on research conducted with so-called objective demographic categories based on registry data (such as country of origin and mother tongue). The caveat of using such data is that certain groups such as Finns from mixed ethnic backgrounds, Roma, and immigrants from multi-lingual backgrounds fall in between the cracks. For example, there are many Finnish people of colour (POC) with Finnish as a mother tongue that face discrimination due to their ethnicity in the labour market. To understand experiences like these and others, we need to create more inclusive categories for the ever-diversifying society to ensure that systemic problems do not remain invisible due to the lack of information that is created by the system itself. These demographic categories are not only used for information flow between government officials but also as predictors to create policies for inclusivity. This study will thus examine which subjective and objective demographic categories could be most suitable for studying societal phenomena such as immigrant integration and inclusion in Finnish society. I will particularly focus on whether registry data on ethnicity could help or hinder creating more inclusive policies. Researchers and politicians from the left and right have argued that certain subjective criteria such as ethnicity could be a better predictor for immigrant integration but also understanding experiences of discrimination among Finnish POC. However, registry data on ethnicity may also have severe consequences: one example is Nazi Germany where this data was used for ethnic cleansing of Jewish people. It is thus vital to understand the attitudes of both experts, immigrants, and Finns from mixed backgrounds towards possible new demographic categories. I will thus interview both experts and people from immigrant and mixed Finnish backgrounds. I seek to answer the question of could other objective and/or subjective criteria help understand immigrant integration, and are there differences between experts, immigrants, and Finns.