Page 73 - valuing-diversity-guidance-for-labour-market-integration-of-migrants

Valuing diversity: guidance for labour market integration of migrants

Table 5, however, shows that, in the EU, for higher levels of education, third-
country born are not significantly far from nationals. The imbalance is clearer in
lower levels, where we find 38% of the third-country born against 21% of the
native-born in the EU. The imbalance in lower levels of educational attainment is
particularly strong in south European countries such as Greece, Italy, Portugal,
and Malta, which have a very high proportion of low-qualified and a very low
percentage of immigrants with higher education among the third-country
immigrants (only 12% in both Greece and Italy).

Figure 13 Sweden: first residence permits by nationality of third-country citizens
(%), 2011

Iraq, 8.5 Thailand, 7.7

Others, 36.9

China, 6.4
India, 5.8

Afghanistan, 5.7

Somalia, 5.1
Pakistan, 2.2
Russia, 2.5 Iran, 4.1
Stateless, 2.6 Turkey, 3.9
Syria, 2.7
Eritrea, 3.3 United States, 3.5
Source: Eurostat, first residence permits. Online data code [migr_resfirst].

It should be noted that the closing gap between the native population and
the third-country born in higher education is a recent trend; it may be related to
policy initiatives aimed at attracting highly qualified labour, such as the blue card
directive (2009). Figure 14 shows the convergent lines of higher education
between the two groups, between 2009 and 2012.

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