Settlement

During the last decades immigrants have been more and more concentrated in certain areas of the country and in certain housing areas. For many years it has been a central political objective to avoid such concentrations on the assumption that it might restrict the integration into the Danish society. AKF's research into the settlement of immigrants is about:

• reasons for continuing concentration,
• the consequences of the concentration,
• initiatives in order to limit the concentration.

Reasons for concentration

Immigrants' settlement concentration has increased markedly during the latest decades. They are especially concentrated in the big cities, which among other things is due to the fact that they attach great importance to living together with compatriots and family, particularly at the beginning of their stay in Denmark. Lack of labour-market integration also means that a lot of immigrants cannot afford to buy a dwelling outside of the immigrant concentration areas. Other explanations could be that the Danish housing market is rather opaque, that the immigrants value the facilities in big cities etc.

Consequences of the concentration

A concentrated settlement might have both positive and negative consequences for the integration. Foreign studies show that the negative effects are in the majority, but not much when considering that it is mostly the ones with few resources who live in the concentrated housing areas. For Denmark, no thorough studies have been made of the consequences of the concentrated settlement. In analyses regarding labour market and educational concentration we sometimes involve a variable for settlement in a concentrated housing area, but the result is not unambiguous.

Initiatives to limit the concentration

Foreign experience suggests that it is very difficult to carry out successful initiatives with a view to spreading the immigrants. In 1999, a new integration law came into force in Denmark. In reality this means that for the first three years refugees are forced to stay in the municipality where they first got a permanent dwelling. AKF's first studies of the effect of the law show that refugees are very limited compared to earlier during the three-year period, but subsequently many of them move from the country to the city and here they move to the already concentrated housing areas. A need for moving has been accumulating and it is realised when the opportunity appears. Whether there is an effect of the law in the long run still remains to be seen.