EU migration policy remains caught between crisis management and long-term integration goals. Asylum systems, border controls, and emergency responses dominate public and political attention, while structural issues such as demographic change and labour shortages call for effective integration policies focused on employment and social participation. Yet, belonging, fairness, and democratic participation remain under-addressed in existing EU frameworks.
Findings from the We-ID Agenda-Setting Workshop and supporting quantitative analysis offer a vision for bridging these gaps — ensuring that integration policy contributes to social and territorial cohesion, democratic trust, and sustainable development. Without addressing these dimensions, Europe risks deepening divides between regions, generations, and citizens — with or without migration backgrounds.
Workplaces as democratic arenas
In EU and national debates, employment remains framed mainly in economic terms – labour shortages, skills, and recognition of qualifications. Migration is often presented as a demographic or economic remedy, not as a civic process. Yet, integration through work cannot succeed if funding for language courses, mentoring, and local inclusion measures is cut, or if migrants face bureaucratic barriers and discrimination.
Workplaces can act as “everyday democracies”: environments where rights, trust, and belonging are experienced in practice. People develop cohesion through recurring encounters in social places, including workplaces (Kersten et al., 2022). When companies, unions, and local governments jointly manage diversity, workplaces strengthen both economic and social integration.
However, foreign-born workers remain underrepresented in trade unions and works councils, and workplace discrimination correlates strongly with lower civic participation and institutional trust (OECD–European Commission, 2023; FRA, 2023). Municipalities often operate under the assumption of the “ideal migrant,” integrating easily and silently into workplaces and communities – an expectation rarely met without structural support.
Action points:
- Recognize workplaces as civic spaces: supporting worker councils, diversity management, and social dialogue as tools for integration and democracy.
- Embed “democratic workplace” criteria into Cohesion and Social Fund programmes, measuring not just employment, but empowerment in the workplace and beyond.
Youth and Shifting Attitudes
Surveys such as the Eurobarometer and national polls highlight growing ambivalence among younger Europeans – including those with migration backgrounds – toward institutions and democracy. Many express cynicism rather than indifference: they desire to participate but face limited access and representation, particularly in smaller towns and rural regions (Vorländer et al., 2025).
The EU Youth Strategy (2019–2027) identifies this engagement gap – a democratic infrastructure deficit, not a value shift. Youth disengagement stems from exclusion and lack of credible representation, not apathy.
Action points:
- Integrate youth participation mechanisms (local youth councils, digital assemblies, cultural initiatives) into migration and integration policies.
- Direct EU youth and cohesion funds to rural and eastern regions, where civic and cultural infrastructures are weakest.
- Treat digital spaces as civic spaces—build democratic content ecosystems to compete with populist narratives.
Rural Divides and Depopulated Areas
Migration can revitalize rural and remote regions, but only if matched by accessible services, fair employment, and narratives of belonging.
Research from Scotland (EAG, 2025) shows that many people in their late twenties and thirties move or return to rural areas to form families or seeking a higher quality of life. International migration can complement these trends and help offset ageing and depopulation in rural areas – if both partners find employment and childcare support locally.
Where such opportunities exist, migrants and returnees are more likely to stay, invest, and engage civically. Without them, rural resentment and political polarization deepen – as shown by a recent JRC (2025) report.
Action points:
- Make rural inclusion a central cohesion objective post-2027.
- Funding multi-purpose community hubs combining services, integration, and participation spaces.
- Support local storytelling that frames migration as part of demographic renewal, not disruption.
Gender-Sensitive Integration
Across Europe, family migration often reproduces traditional labour patterns: one partner, usually the man, works, while the other, typically the woman, stays at home (DeZIM, 2019; Eurostat, 2023; Mikolai and Kulu, 2025). A challenge to European societies is how to better use the skills of women who arrive as dependants. This pattern stems from legal and structural barriers – limited rights to work, a lack of affordable childcare, and difficulties in requalification – rather than personal preference.
Unlocking migrant women’s potential is vital for integration, demographic renewal, and gender equality. Employment anchors women’s sense of belonging within their communities and regions, while also enabling parenthood and determining fertility patterns among migrant families—an essential factor for demographic regeneration in depopulating areas. (Mikolai & Kulu, 2025).
Policy actions:
- Introduce gender equality benchmarks in integration funding.
- Provide childcare, upskilling, and civic engagement support as joint inclusion measures.
- Ensure migrant women’s representation in local and national consultative bodies.
- Provide better information to people who migrant with family reunion visas on employment opportunities and available childcare.
The Trust Paradox
Trust in government has declined across Europe, challenging democratic legitimacy. Yet, European Social Survey (2023) data show that migrants often express higher trust in democratic institutions than native-born citizens – even though they often lack formal representation channels. However, this dynamic reveals multiple trust gaps across Europe, especially in high-distrust regions, since migrant’s optimism rarely translates into electoral participation. Even among those with voting rights, turnout remains lower than among native population—who, paradoxically, report less trust in those same institutions.
Within migrant communities, trust also declines across generations, reflecting the impacts of social barriers and exclusion. Addressing this “trust paradox” requires transparent local governance and shared decision-making.
Policy actions:
- Institutionalize local democracy compacts—participatory councils where migrants, employers, and residents co-shape integration priorities as well as the decision-making.
- Increase transparency and feedback loops in local governance to demonstrate responsiveness and fairness.
- Embed “trust-building” indicators—visible outcomes, perceived fairness, inclusivity—into EU Cohesion Policy evaluation frameworks.
Looking ahead
Evidence from recent data and We-ID stakeholder engagement converges on one insight: democratic resilience cannot be built through top-down economic growth alone. Trust, inclusion, and local ownership are equally essential.
Europe’s next migration and integration strategy will be shaped and adopted in the next few years. This should include:
- Treating integration as democratic infrastructure—investing in social trust, civic engagement, and fair representation.
- Aligning migration, cohesion, and youth strategies around belonging and participation.
- Strengthening place-based, gender-equal, and intergenerational inclusion as the backbone of sustainable democracy.
Acknowledgement
We-ID: Identities - Migration - Democracy is a joint research project funded by the European Union in the program HORIZON 2.2.1 Culture, Creativity and inclusive Society - Democracy and Governance. Grant agreement ID: 101177925
References
Deutsches Zentrum für Integrations- und Migrationsforschung (DeZIM) (2019). Labour Force Potential of Spouses Moving in from Other EU Countries and Third Countries. Berlin: DeZIM Institute. https://www.dezim-institut.de/en/projects/project-detail/labour-force-potential-of-spouses-moving-in-from-other-eu-countries-and-third-countries-3-08/
EAG (2025). Rural Scotland – Trajectories of Young People and Young Adults: Report. Expert Advisory Group on Migration and Population, Scottish Government. https://www.gov.scot/publications/migration-mobilities-trajectories-young-people-young-adults-rural-scotland/
European Union (2019). EU Youth Strategy 2019–2027. Brussels: European Commission. https://youth.europa.eu/strategy_en
European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) (2023). Being Black in the EU: Second Survey on Discrimination and Hate Crime Against People of African Descent in the EU. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. https://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/fra_uploads/fra-2023-being-black_in_the_eu_en.pdf
Eurostat (2023). Migrant Integration Statistics – Employment Conditions. Luxembourg: European Commission, Publications Office of the European Union. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/SEPDF/cache/53712.pdf
ESS (2024). PROSPECTUS. London: European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC).
Joint Research Centre (JRC) (2025). Strategic Foresight Report 2025, Office of the European Union. https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/strategic-foresight/2025-strategic-foresight-report_en
Kersten, J., Neu, C., & Vogel, B. (2022). Das Soziale-Orte-Konzept. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag.
Mikolai, J., & Kulu, H. (2025). The partnership, fertility, and employment trajectories of immigrants in the United Kingdom: An intersectional life course approach using three-channel sequence analysis. Demographic Research, 53(10), 263–296. https://www.demographic-research.org/articles/volume/53/10
OECD / European Commission (2023). Indicators of Immigrant Integration 2023: Settling In. Paris: OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/1d5020a6-en
Vorländer, H., Herold, M., Hormig, F., & Otteni, C. (2025). Politische Polarisierung in Deutschland 2025: Polarisierungsbarometer. Dresden: Mercator Forum Migration und Demokratie (MIDEM).