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Second generation immigrants generally highly educated and well integrated into the labour market

Nov 2, 2016 | News

(28 October 2016) – In 2014, in the EU as a whole, 81.1% of second generation immigrants were employed. Second generation immigrants also had higher tertiary educational attainment rates than their peers with a native background.

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© Rosalind Mitchell

However, the pattern at EU level masks important differences at Member State level, where the size and direction of gaps differ significantly. Thus, in Belgium, Luxembourg, Latvia, the Czech Republic and Finland, the proportion of tertiary educated second generation immigrants was at least 5 percentage points lower than their counterparts with a native background.

In 2014, second generation immigrants had similar or even higher employment rate than persons with a native background in Bulgaria, Luxembourg, Portugal, Hungary, Finland and Poland. In contrast, the employment rates of second generation immigrants were at least 5 percentage points lower than their counterparts with a native background in Belgium, Croatia, Latvia, Malta, Slovenia, Austria and Germany.

In 2014, 6.1% of the EU population aged 15-64 (18.4 million individuals) were considered as second generation immigrants.

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