Migrant Integration Index

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.