Research · Frameworks & Benchmarks
The Resettlement Integration Index
At ninety days the case was closed — housed, employed, a resettlement success. No one was still measuring three years later, when the survival job had not advanced and the English had not come.
A standing longitudinal benchmark · Updated June 2026
Why longitudinal
Resettlement is judged at ninety days. A life is rebuilt over years.
The measurement closes when the case does — declaring success at the exact moment it loses sight of the outcome.
Resettlement is measured by what can be counted quickly: a family housed, an adult employed within a few months, a case marked self-sufficient and closed. These early markers matter, and they are also where the measuring usually stops — which means the system declares success at the exact moment it loses sight of the outcome. A survival job at ninety days is counted the same as a career; an apartment is counted the same as stability; “employed” is recorded long before anyone could know whether the work advanced, the language came, the children thrived, or the family quietly came apart under pressures no short-term metric was built to see.
The result is a measurement that flatters the program and fails the person. A population can post strong ninety-day numbers and, years on, be stalled in survival work, struggling with health and language, isolated from community — and none of it appears in the record, because the record closed when the case did. Integration is not an event that happens by ninety days; it is an outcome that unfolds over years, and a metric that stops at the start cannot tell whether it happened at all.
The Resettlement Integration Index measures it as the long-term outcome it is. It tracks the dimensions that actually constitute a life rebuilt — economic mobility, health, education, language, stability, and belonging — over the years they take to develop, across a population rather than reducing anyone to a number, so that the honest question is finally asked: not whether people were placed, but whether they integrated.
The doctrine
Placed is not integrated.
A family counted a success at ninety days — housed, employed in a survival job — may be unwell, isolated, and stalled three years on, and the system that declared success stopped measuring before it could know. Integration is a longitudinal outcome. The Index measures it as one.
The dimensions
Six dimensions of a life rebuilt — measured over years, not months.
Economic mobility
Not first-job-at-ninety-days, but stable and advancing work over time — whether the survival job became a livelihood, or never moved.
Health and wellbeing
Access and outcomes over time, including mental health — the dimension under the most strain for displaced populations and the least captured by placement metrics.
Education
Children’s schooling and adults’ learning — language classes, credentials recognized, the next generation’s trajectory.
Language acquisition
English proficiency as it develops over years — a central determinant of every other outcome, and rarely tracked past the first months.
Stability and self-determination
Housing and financial stability, and agency over one’s own life — settled, not merely placed.
Belonging and community
Social integration and community ties over time — whether the family found a place among others, or remained isolated.
The anatomy of the Index
Six dimensions
economic mobility · health · education · language · stability · belonging
Measured over years
longitudinally, not a single snapshot
The integration measure
the longitudinal standard across dimensions
The window
Where resettlement stops measuring, integration is still unfolding.
Short-term metrics close near ninety days. Each dimension of a rebuilt life develops over the years that follow — which is the window the Index keeps measuring.
Illustrative — the measurement window, not outcome data. Resettlement metrics close near ninety days (gold); the Index measures each dimension across the years that follow.
The method
Over time, against integration, with the dignity of not reducing anyone to a number.
Longitudinal by design
The Index measures the same dimensions over years, following the integration journey, rather than capturing a single point and calling it an outcome.
Against integration, not placement
It measures whether a life was rebuilt — advancement, health, language, stability, belonging — not whether a case was opened and quickly closed.
Culturally valid measurement
The dimensions and measures are defined for this population, by people who understand it, rather than imported from generic metrics that miss what integration means here.
Outcomes measured, not mono-attributed
Integration depends on many forces — the economy, policy, community, circumstance — and the Index measures how a population is faring without assigning sole credit or blame to any one program.
Standardized and reproducible
The methodology is consistent and documented, so a measure means the same thing across populations and across years, and can be examined.
The output
An honest, long-term picture — and an honest account of what it is and is not.
For the agency, funder, or program responsible for resettlement, the Index produces what ninety-day metrics cannot: a longitudinal picture of how a population is actually integrating, across the dimensions that constitute a rebuilt life, over the years it takes. It is built to improve the support people receive — to show where integration is stalling, for whom, and in what dimension, so resources follow the need rather than the early number — and to replace a measurement that ends at the start with one that lasts as long as integration does.
A long-term picture
Integration measured over years, across the dimensions that constitute a rebuilt life.
Where support is needed
Which dimension is stalling, and for whom — so resources follow the need.
A consistent measure
Standardized across populations and years, so progress can be honestly tracked.
The Resettlement Integration Index measures integration outcomes over time. Integration depends on many factors — economic conditions, policy, community, and individual circumstance — and the Index does not assign sole credit or blame for an outcome to any single program or cause. It is a measure of how a population is faring, intended to improve the support they receive; it is not a judgment of any individual, nor a guarantee of any outcome.
A life is measured in years, not days.
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Continue
Explore Frameworks & Benchmarks.
Climate & Migration Watch →
The displacement upstream of resettlement; this Index measures the outcomes downstream.
The APAP Pathway →
The care navigation that supports one dimension of integration.
Health Equity Studies →
Research into the health outcomes the Index tracks.
All Frameworks & Benchmarks →
The full directory.
This page is the index. For the service — resettlement operations — see Asylum & Resettlement Operations. →
Measure the life, not just the placement.
For the agencies, funders, and programs responsible for resettlement — and unwilling to let a ninety-day number stand in for whether a life was rebuilt. Briefings are conducted under NDA, in Washington, D.C. or virtually.
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