Socio-demographic Characteristics and Socio-economic Integration of Migrant Populations in European Countries in the 21st Century

Maria Carella , University of Bari Aldo Moro
Federico Benassi, Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT)
Frank Heins , Irpps-CNR
Ricardo Iglesias Pascual , Universidad Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Sevilla

In Europe, immigrant integration has received increasing attention from policymakers and scholars since the beginning of the 1990s, following a significant growth of immigrant populations due to new migration inflows. Despite this attention, the concept of integration remains extremely controversial within the academic community. Recent studies suggest that not only this term can enfold multiple meanings depending on the different domains in which integration occurs, but it can also greatly diverge across countries. In general, immigrant integration is seen as a complex and multi-dimensional process dependent on the political, cultural, and socio-economic dimensions in which newcomers are engaged in a host society. However, adopting a universal definition is still tricky, as there is no consensus on a shared European integration model, or even on how an integrated society should be ideally conceived. The principal aim of this contribution is to conduct a comparative analysis on the socio-demographic characteristics and the socio-economic integration of migrant populations in European countries during the last two decades. In particular, adopting a diachronic and transnational approach, we will examine the patterns of immigrant integration related to the labour markets focusing on their dissimilarities over time and across space. Our study is based on database from Eurostat concerning integration of migrant populations, which provide detailed information on the immigrants and on economic activity and unemployment in European countries. We will investigate migrant populations by sex, age, country of citizenship and country of birth distinguishing EU28 and Non EU28 countries.

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 Presented in Session 21. International Migration