A Multidimensional Measure of Immigrant Integration
The IPL Integration Index is a project of the Immigration Policy Lab at Stanford University and ETH Zurich. Its short and long forms, “IPL-12” and “IPL-24”, have been built as versatile and pragmatic outcome measures. Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Index was developed by testing and reducing hundreds of questions culled from existing surveys. It has been validated through surveys conducted in a variety of countries and with various immigrant groups.
Prior to the IPL Integration Index, there was no common measure of immigrant integration that would allow a comparison of integration levels of different migrant populations across countries and over time.
The IPL-12 poses two questions for each of the six dimensions of integration: psychological, social, economic, political, linguistic, and navigational. Administering it consumes very little survey time, and we hope that it will become a standard module embedded in all studies seeking to measure levels of integration across immigrant communities. As well, it should serve as a barometer for measuring the success of particular integration programs.
The IPL-24, with four questions for each dimension, allows for more precise measurement on each dimension of integration. We welcome fellow researchers to make use of this measure and invite feedback that will help us not only to improve the instructions on this web page, but to improve as well the measure itself as we continue to advance the IPL-12/24. To learn more about how we developed and tested the measure, have a look at our study. To see our survey questions and learn about coding rules, read our technical appendix, take the survey, or have a look at the download section.
