When interviewed in September 1998, two-fifths of the individuals receiving minimum integration income on 31 December 1996 stated that they had not signed a social or professional integration contract since they had joined the scheme. The law stipulates that they should sign one within three months of first receiving the benefit. Integration into employment appears to be the priority aim of the integration contracts: nine in ten signatories declared that at least one of their contracts concerned access to employment. The proximity of the labour market is favourable to employment contracts: the propensity to sign occupation integration contracts is greater among young people and graduates. This tendency rises when the economic environment is conducive: recipients living in a département with a low unemployment rate or a low percentage of minimum integration income recipients have a greater chance of signing a contract. Employment integration contracts have a mixed effect on exits from minimum integration income. They foster signing off from minimum integration income by means of government-assisted jobs of the employment solidarity contract type, but they do not significantly raise the chances of finding jobs, especially full-time jobs, in the market sector. Individual characteristics (age, skills, state of health, etc.) play the most decisive role in these jobs. Moreover, the longer the period on minimum integration income, the smaller the chances of signing off from it. Lastly, a beneficiary who goes back onto minimum integration income after having signed off from it once has less chance of signing off from it again.