Compare methods

	Spatial Assimilation Model	Migrant Integration Index
Field	Migration Studies	Migration Studies
Family	Regression model	Latent structure
Year of origin	1985	2018
Originator	Douglas S. Massey & Nancy A. Denton	Niklas Harder, Lucila Figueroa, Rachel M. Gillum, Dominik Hangartner, David D. Laitin & Jens Hainmueller
Type	Locational-attainment regression of residential outcomes	Latent multidimensional survey scale of individual integration
Seminal source	Massey, D. S., & Denton, N. A. (1985). Spatial Assimilation as a Socioeconomic Outcome. American Sociological Review, 50(1), 94-106.	Harder, N., Figueroa, L., Gillum, R. M., Hangartner, D., Laitin, D. D., & Hainmueller, J. (2018). Multidimensional Measure of Immigrant Integration. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(45), 11483-11488.
Aliases	Locational Attainment Model, Residential Attainment Regression, Massey-Denton Spatial Assimilation, Spatial Assimilation Theory Test	IPL Integration Index, IPL-12 Integration Measure, Individual Immigrant Integration Scale, Multidimensional Integration Survey Index
Related	3	3
Summary	The spatial assimilation model, articulated by Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton in 1985, treats where immigrants and minorities live as a measurable outcome of their social mobility. Its core proposition is that as group members acquire human capital and cultural familiarity — rising income, more schooling, English fluency, and longer settlement — they convert these gains into residential mobility, moving out of co-ethnic enclaves into suburban, majority, and higher-quality neighborhoods closer to members of the dominant group. The model is operationalized as a locational-attainment regression: individual residential outcomes are regressed on acculturation and socioeconomic predictors to see whether the expected spatial payoff materializes. Crucially, it doubles as a test of discrimination, because if a minority group earns a smaller residential return on the same income and education than the majority, the shortfall signals barriers that pure assimilation cannot explain. Massey and Denton used this logic to show that spatial assimilation operated for some groups but stalled for others, especially African Americans. The framework became the workhorse for studying how socioeconomic advancement does or does not translate into residential integration.	The migrant integration index developed by Harder, Hainmueller, Laitin and colleagues in 2018 is a short, validated survey instrument that measures how integrated an individual immigrant is across six distinct dimensions: psychological, economic, political, social, linguistic, and navigational. Earlier integration research suffered from a proliferation of ad hoc, single-dimension proxies — employment alone, or language alone — that were not comparable across studies, groups, or countries. The IPL index, named for Stanford's Immigration Policy Lab, instead defines integration as inherently multidimensional and provides standardized batteries — a twelve-item short form (IPL-12) and a twenty-four-item long form (IPL-24) — that aggregate the six dimensions into a single, comparable score for each person. Critically, the instrument is designed and validated psychometrically, with the short form shown to track the long form and external outcomes closely, so researchers can capture the full breadth of integration in just a few minutes of survey time. The result is a portable, individual-level measurement tool that brings consistency to a field long fragmented by incommensurable indicators.