Solving the integration challenge of high-skilled migrants: the central role of merits

This interdisciplinary study aims to explore with mixed methods, the knowledge gap on the topic of integration of high-skilled labor migrants (HSMs) in Sweden, because HSMs attraction and retention are a necessity for Sweden’s economic prosperity. The project questions the idea of "meritocratic integration," which assumes that HSMs easily integrate thanks to their professional merits. We argue that two paradoxes challenge this assumption. The "skill paradox": HSMs are underemployed compared to native counterparts, potentially due to organizations' difficulty in recognizing their professional merits. The "integration paradox" shows HSMs' struggles in feeling included. This may be attributed to the lack of recognition in the public opinion of their participation to society at large. We contend that merits are at the core of these paradoxes.

In light of these paradoxes, the objective of this study is to understand how HSMs' merits are defined and valued for their integration. Guided by Lamont’s recognition theory, three work packages investigate public attitudes, organizational practices, and HSMs' perspectives on merits and their link to integration.

WP1 -public opinion on merits for inclusion

From our survey experiment, we start to see that the strongest perceived merit for considering that a skilled migrant is integrated (proxy: citizenship) is their knowledge of Swedish, and if possible, without accent. Our preliminary insights indicate that it is the cultural adaptation of the skilled migrants that is seen as the most desirable merit for integration. Both foreign born and Swedish born agree on this merit. The second most important merit is being in active employment. The third most important merit is a (prestigious) education or occupation.

WP2- Skilled migrants’ merits in the labor market

On the basis of the large recruitment data we have accessed from a Nordic company, there seems to be a clear ethnic preference for Nordic applicants. Depending on the sector of activity we see different effects of gender on the preference of who is recruited. So, when previous research indicates penalties to certain ethnic groups (e.g. Arab sounding names), we find instead a preference for Nordic. In addition, there are indications that the gender of the recruiter plays a role in who is recruited, depending on the sector of activity. Preliminary findings indicate that screening is not the moment when most discrimination is taking place, as documented in previous research, but rather, the interview is the most decisive moment. In addition, internal candidates have a much stronger likelihood of being recruited compared to external candidates.

WP3: Migrants’ views on integration

In this qualitative investigation, our first finding is the revelation that skilled migrants are an under-researched group which is eager to share its experience of integration. Many stories are stories of struggles and pain in integrating Swedish society. This is not generally understood about skilled migrants. Second, the interviews indicate two topics that will now be further analyzed. (1) Skilled migrants integrate through civic engagement, they form organizations, networks, that are different from Swedish common civic engagement (e.g. hobbies or activity groups) as a way into Swedish society. The skilled migrants thus create their own agentic civic pathway to integration, and they do so to purposefully ‘give back to society’. (2) Knowing Swedish is presented as a ‘plus’ but not a path to integration. Swedish is used around ‘fika’ to bond with colleagues, and that’s about it. Whatever level of Swedish migrants have, it seems that skilled migrants believe that it is never really sufficient to be fully integrated.

Funding:
This project is funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond during 2025-2027.

Researchers:
Prof. Laurence Romani (project leader)
Prof. Andrea Voyer
Dr Paolo Velásquez