Received with open arms or experienced as a threat: migrants and Dutch society I Public Academy of Social Sciences

Asylum seekers. When it comes to migration, many Dutch people mainly think of young men from Muslim countries who come here to apply for asylum.

Yet they form only a small part of the 400,000 migrants who settled in the Netherlands in 2022. “About 12 percent are asylum seekers,” says Helga de Valk, professor at the University of Groningen (RUG) and director of the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI). “If you add the following travelers in the context of family reunification, you get a maximum of about 20 percent.”

A fifth of all migrants come here for asylum. About half of those asylum seekers are single men. The prevailing image of migration is often dominated by a small group.

“The vast majority of migrants come here because of work, study or love,” says De Valk. “But about the highly educated Indian knowledge worker who works in… Brainport You don’t hear Eindhoven that much.”

Who are those people anyway?

Migration is a topic that concerns people. It will be one of the most important election issues in November. During the public academy of social sciences, Helga de Valk and professor of sociology Jochem Tolsma will speak in Forum Groningen next Tuesday about migration and its consequences for society.

Who exactly are these people, where do they come from, why do they come here? And once they are here: how does society react, how do they find their place, how can we live together?

“Contrary to popular belief, the Netherlands does not attract the most migrants within Europe,” says De Valk. “Germany has been by far the most receiving country in terms of migration for many years, certainly in absolute numbers. Per capita it is approximately equal to the Netherlands. The often heard idea that people come here en masse because of our welfare state turns out to be incorrect. We have investigated this and could not find any evidence for this. The only thing you do see is that migrants sometimes stay here longer because of facilities, for example because they think education is better for their children than in the countries they came from.”

Labor and study migrants usually stay in the Netherlands for a limited period. “They leave after a few years. This is often seen as positive, but it also has disadvantages for integration into society. Because new people keep coming and accumulated knowledge and human capital are lost again.

Immigrants as a threat

Jochem Tolsma, professor by special appointment of Social Divisions at the RUG, has conducted research into the way in which society responds to newcomers. What makes immigrants sometimes seen as a threat and sometimes welcomed with open arms?

“First of all, that has to do with who they are. Ukrainians, for example, but also highly educated Syrians, are seen less as a problem than less educated North Africans. In addition, it also matters a lot where they end up. If asylum seekers stay in asylum seekers’ centers, barely visible and without contact with local residents, this is not so threatening. But take the crisis emergency reception locations, where asylum seekers are housed in sports halls in the middle of a neighborhood or village and the area feels overwhelmed. Then it is very visible and there is a greater chance that local residents will experience it as a threat.”

Hide away or let it integrate

In addition, these crisis emergency shelters are temporary, so they regularly close and open elsewhere. For example, relatively many citizens are confronted with asylum seekers in their neighborhood. A group that is very visible, but does not stay long enough to build positive relationships with.

“There’s a paradox there. If you want to confront society as little as possible with newcomers, it is more beneficial to ‘put them away’ somewhere afterwards, as happens with both asylum seekers and labor migrants. This helps to prevent unrest in the short term. In the long term, this is actually bad for integration. Then it is better to place asylum seekers in the middle of society, where they have a lot of contact with local residents. This may feel threatening to the environment in the short term, but experience shows that people are often ultimately more positive about migrants if they have an asylum center nearby. That is a dilemma for the government. What is the best thing to do?”

Sense of threat mainly fueled by national debate

Tolsma’s research has also shown that the threat that Dutch people experience from migration is determined much more by social debate at national level than by local events in the neighborhood. “For example, the feeling that our identity is under pressure is mainly fueled by the national debate about migration, not by what is going on in the immediate living environment. A village like Ter Apel is of course an exception in this respect, as there is a very direct effect of the registration center.”

The asylum crisis in the Netherlands has a major influence: on the newcomers themselves and on the way they are received. Tolsma: “There was broad support for asylum reception in Ter Apel for a long time. Until the government turned out to be fickle and unreliable. Then there comes a time when citizens say: ‘We won’t do it anymore, now it’s someone else’s turn’.”

Consequences of moving in childhood

The crisis emergency shelters also do not contribute to support and are especially bad for the people who have to stay in them. Helga de Valk conducts research into the impact of moving in childhood on the rest of life. “What we see is that it can have major consequences, especially among adolescents. Especially if there are multiple moves that are associated with problems for parents, such as long-term unemployment or poverty. This continues until later in life. This applies to an extreme extent to refugee children. They move here and are also dragged from one shelter to another in the Netherlands. There are major concerns about that. Also about the eventual integration of these young people.”

The central question of this public academy is an important question of our time: how can we continue to live together comfortably in the future? If the population is growing so fast due to migration, if an asylum crisis undermines support and makes integration difficult?

Social cohesion in various neighborhoods is no worse

At the same time, Tolsma nuances the fear that immigration would disrupt social cohesion in society. “The consequences of increasing diversity in the neighborhood are limited, research shows. We must recognize that an increase in newcomers to the residential environment does make residents feel less at home in their neighborhood and that contact with immediate neighbors decreases, but these effects are often temporary and lead to fears that society will collapse. we see no clues. Residents of culturally diverse neighborhoods do not have less trust, do not have fewer social contacts and do not do less volunteer work.”