There is a growing interest in the question of immigrants’ legal trajectories, but there have been few quantitative surveys on the subject, due to the lack of satisfactory data. Most existing statistical studies use biographical surveys where current or past legal status is used as an explanatory variable for studying other social phenomena, but these studies rarely question the quality of that measurement. Some studies quantified the potential biases, but did not qualify them. Reporting legal status can generate defiance when the trajectory is a sensitive issue (social desirability bias). It can be difficult if the migration process is long past (memory bias), or the respondent did not make their application themselves (nonproactivity bias). Using a retrospective biographical survey of about 10,000 immigrants in France, I offer a reflexive analysis of these biases. I show that they are small, the data showing low nonresponse rates, and a remarkable internal and external consistency. Biased responses can be attributed to the difficulty in recalling events, grasping some technical terms, or even to the desire to control one's migratory narrative in a context of downward social status. These results teach us that legal status should more often be included in surveys, which would improve theorization of migrants’ experiences, but also better link these theories with public policies. The results inform us about how immigrants take hold of the official categories, suggesting that they have more expertise and less defiance in reporting them that we could have assumed.

中文翻译：

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我们可以看到他们的 ID 吗？衡量移民的法律轨迹：来自法国调查的经验教训


人们对移民的法律轨迹问题越来越感兴趣，但由于缺乏令人满意的数据，关于该主题的定量调查很少。大多数现有的统计研究都使用传记调查，其中当前或过去的法律地位被用作研究其他社会现象的解释变量，但这些研究很少质疑该测量的质量。一些研究量化了潜在的偏倚，但没有对其进行定性。当发展轨迹是一个敏感问题时，报告法律地位可能会产生反抗（社会期望偏差）。如果迁移过程早已过去（记忆偏差），或者受访者没有自己申请（非主动偏差），这可能会很困难。通过对法国约 10,000 名移民的回顾性传记调查，我对这些偏见进行了反思性分析。我表明它们很小，数据显示未回复率很低，并且内部和外部一致性显著。有偏见的反应可以归因于难以回忆事件、掌握一些技术术语，甚至是由于希望在社会地位下降的背景下控制一个人的迁移叙述。这些结果告诉我们，法律地位应该更频繁地被纳入调查中，这将改善对移民经历的理论化，但也能更好地将这些理论与公共政策联系起来。结果告诉我们移民是如何掌握官方类别的，这表明他们有更多的专业知识，并且在报告这些类别时没有那么挑衅，而我们本可以假设的。