Immigrants’ Identity Orientations: Predicting the Integration Success of Highly Qualified Migrants

Migration is one of the grand societal challenges of our time, but relatively little is known about the factors and mechanisms that govern immigrant experiences and contribute to successful integration outcomes in the workplace domain (e.g., career success) and personal life domain (e.g., social integration). In this study, we adopt an identity-based approach to understanding the factors that shape immigrants’ identity orientations and influence their community and career embeddedness as a critical element of their integration success. The results of a study of 1,716 highly qualified immigrants from 46 countries of origin in 12 host countries reveal that aspects of the institutional and cultural environment provide both sources of opportunity (e.g., in-creased potential for human development) and sources of disadvantage (e.g., potential status degradation) for immigrants, and that these opposing dynamics affect the emergence of a host country identity, retention of a home country identity, and, ultimately, immigrants’ community and career embeddedness in the host country. The implications for research and practice are discussed.