Integrating Immigrants: Evidence from a Field Experiment on Information and Psychological Constraints

Even a substantial time after arrival, immigrants are often not effectively integrated in host societies. Integration programs typically focus on supporting migrants in obtaining citizenship, residency, or work permits, or facilitate integration through language and cultural education programs. Existing evidence on the impact of holistic programs is scarce and the mechanisms underlying such programs have not been studied in detail - even though these are most relevant for policy action. We aim to contribute to reducing this knowledge gap and propose to experimentally evaluate the effectiveness of two interventions designed to promote immigrant integration, through improving migrant information, migrant self-perception, and any complementarities between them. Specifically, we examine whether reducing the cost of access to migrant-targeted information enlarges the migrants’ information set beyond that provided by their initial network, and whether exposure to migrant success stories removes migrants’ psychological constraints in ways that improve their expectations and aspirations regarding education and labor market outcomes – which in turn may increase efforts that results in better integration outcomes. For this purpose, we will implement a randomized controlled trial with recent Cape Verdean immigrants in Portugal that we will follow over the course of one year.