The Socioeconomic Integration of Immigrants in the EU Effects of Origin and Destination Countries on the First and Second Generation

This chapter examines the economic integration of first-and second-generation immigrants into thirteen countries in Europe, considering several possible determinants of successful integration, including the immigrant's own education and the education of the immigrant's parents. In general, both the immigrant's own educational attainment and the immigrant's parents' education do affect integration. That is, better-educated immigrants from more educated families are more successfully integrated. Various other factors also strongly affect the degree of integration, however. Country of origin matters: immigrants in the EU from Eastern Europe and Central Asia fare less well than immigrants from Western European countries, for example. The welfare regime in the receiving country also affects immigrant incorporation: immigrants in nations with social democratic regimes have more success integrating than immigrants in the liberal regimes (like the United Kingdom and Ireland), and also more success than immigrants in the conservative welfare regimes of Spain and Italy. Other things held equal, Muslim immigrants were also less integrated economically than others and had lower returns to education than non-Muslims.