Enhancing the Integration of Pakistani Migrant husbands

Partner-migration is a significant source of long-term immigration to the UK, with Pakistani nationals accounting for around one in five spouses or partners granted entry clearance in 20161.

Amid increasing political focus on the social and economic benefits of enhancing integration, attention has focussed on migrant wives, neglecting the substantial minority of male migrant spouses. Such men may experience similar challenges to those faced by wives entering a new linguistic, social, cultural and economic environment. For Pakistani migrant husbands, however, gendered obligations of ‘breadwinning’, combined with labour market disadvantage can also mean long working hours in the low wage economy, limiting time and resources for language learning and other integration-related activities.

This pilot project responds to the Integrated Communities suggestion to support integration by ‘providing information to prospective migrants before they arrive in the UK, to give them a clear expectation about life in modern Britain’. The pilot was a collaboration between the University of Bristol and a UK-based charity, the QED Foundation. Based on QED’s experience providing services for Pakistani women migrating to the UK, and findings from an ESRC-funded project on Marriage Migration and Integration, this pilot is the first to offer pre-migration Integration and Language training for male spousal migrants to the UK.

In partnership with a local training provider in Mirpur, Pakistan, QED delivered two five-week pre-migration courses for men intending to join wives in the UK. The results indicate demand for such a service, and benefits for participants, whilst obstacles encountered during the project provide lessons to inform policy and the delivery of similar schemes.