“Informal but it works”: The Social Integration of Skilled International Migrants in Chengdu, China

Abstract

How best to achieve migrant integration is an ongoing academic and policy debate, as global migration continues to increase and diversify. Existing literature has overwhelmingly focused on integration processes in Western countries, where integration is a goal for both migrants and the host society. China, as an emergent immigration destination, has adopted skilled immigration policies, but its national regime does not consider long-term integration. This thesis asks: Does social integration matter for skilled international migrants in China? If so, how do they build social networks and what particular forms of social integration have emerged in their social life? Why are skilled migrants integrated in the ways they are? Taking Chengdu as a case study, this study draws on in-depth interviews with 72 skilled migrants from 28 countries across different industries and non-participant observation. Findings reveal that migrant social integration can be facilitated by informal mechanisms in the form of common leisure interests, migrant entrepreneurship, and intermarriage in a nexus of an accommodating urban setting but limited national policy support for integration particularly regarding legal status. In a sense, informal integration mechanisms are important in helping migrants to build mixed social networks with both local Chinese and other migrants to satisfy their emotional and instrumental needs and to develop a sense of belonging, even temporarily. This study sheds light on the critical yet often understudied aspects of social integration that is self-initiated by temporary skilled migrants. Unlike legal pathways to citizenship under top-down policies, these informal mechanisms are agentic, spontaneous and bottom-up, playing a crucial and effective role in migrant integration. This thesis contributes to the discussion on temporariness, migrant agency and networking strategies against the backdrop of increasingly tight immigration-integration policies worldwide.