Dianeosis research highlighting how 90s immigrants fit into our society, and why recent arrivals and refugees don’t want to join? A large survey of old and new immigrants and refugees living in Greece.
How did the immigrants of the 1990s integrate into our society, and why do immigrants and refugees who arrived here recently not want to integrate? A large survey of old and new immigrants and refugees living in Greece.
According to the UNHCR, from the beginning of 2014 to the end of 2019, more than 2 million people crossed the Mediterranean in search of a better future in Europe. The refugee crisis of the previous years, however, simply made a pre-existing phenomenon more pressing and intense. Migration flows and refugee waves have existed in the past and will continue to exist in the future as long as there is poverty and wars in the world.
In recent years, our country has been a point of entry for immigrants and refugees, mainly from the countries of the Middle East, Asia and Africa. It was not the first time that we became a host country. In the 1990s, after the collapse of the communist regimes of Eastern Europe, hundreds of thousands of immigrants had poured into the country in search of work and a better life. Then, unlike now, immigrants were not trying to escape war. Back then, unlike now, immigrants saw Greece as a final destination and not as a temporary stop. Hundreds of thousands of them still live here.
diaNEOsis has been studying the topic of immigration for a few years, recognizing that it is a complex phenomenon that is of great concern to Greek citizens and our political system, without however all its aspects being well known, many of the real facts that describe it , or successful management policies from other countries. Today we are publishing the results and key conclusions of two new surveys conducted in 2019 that bring to light useful data on migration in Greece today.
The first was conducted in collaboration with the German foundation Hanns Seidel and the research company Marc in February 2019 on a nationwide sample of 1,000 people, and aims to map the beliefs of Greeks on the subject.
The second was conducted between February and April 2019 by a team of researchers under the coordination of Assistant Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Leiden Vasiliki Tsagronis and Assistant Professor of Globalization Studies at the University of Brighton Vassilis Leontitsis, in collaboration with the research company KAPA Research in a sample of 800 new and older immigrants living in our country. This is unprecedented research on such a scale as it captures the views and attitudes of both recently arrived immigrants and refugees, as well as immigrants from earlier waves of immigration who have been living in our country for many years. It is important to hear their own voice as well. How have older immigrants integrated into our society? How do they see their life here, and how do they envision the future? How different are new immigrants and refugees from them? What are they asking from the Greek State and society?
The researchers record and analyze the results and, in addition, gather evidence from around 50 scientific studies, capture the true picture of the phenomenon today and come up with a series of policy proposals and good practices from abroad.
You can read all the results of the survey on new and old migrants here, and the report of the research team analyzing the results and proposing solutions here.
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