Page 76 - valuing-diversity-guidance-for-labour-market-integration-of-migrants

Valuing diversity: guidance for labour market integration of migrants

10
( ) compared with advanced non-EU countries such as Australia, Canada, or the
United States. This is partly because these countries have had more demanding
requirements for the admission of foreign labour in qualification and minimum
income levels (OECD, 2012a).
Inflow in Europe has been demand-driven, by employers searching for
11
relatively cheap labour and, up to 2010 ( ), by governments tending to liberalise
immigration (e.g. Germany, 2010). Countries where there is an over-
representation of the lower-educated immigrants are those that display the
largest differences in education outcomes between children of natives and
native-born children of immigrants (Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Luxembourg,
the Netherlands and Austria). Given the migration structure of these countries,
the Moroccan and Turkish communities are the ones which risk suffering greater
problems, both in educational attainment and ensuing labour market integration.
PISA data also support the idea of a crucial effect of cultural and linguistic
proximity in post-colonial countries (OECD, 2009). Both France and the United
Kingdom, unlike the countries above, have equal or even better results for native
children of immigrants than the children of natives, once socioeconomic
12
background is controlled for ( ). In countries like Spain or Italy most of the
children of immigrant parents will also be immigrant, displaying worse outcomes
than the ones of both native-born children of immigrants and of natives. These
outcomes refer to not only education but, even more sharply, to the labour
market.
Cedefop research (Cedefop, 2012) highlights that immigrant youth is more
likely to leave education and training earlier than young nationals. This
phenomenon is stronger in Spain and Italy, due to the proportion of low-qualified.
In Europe, in 2010, the share of foreign-born that left education training early
(30%) was generally higher than that of foreign young (26%). The impact of
foreign youth disengagement from education and training was higher in Greece,
Spain, Italy and Portugal. Greece had the highest proportion of foreign-born early
leavers (44%) and of foreign young people who were early leavers (47%). These
results are important given that education outcomes and early labour market
integration have a determining effect over the full career path of individuals.

10
( ) Idem.
11
( ) This process has been partially reversed or slowed down in the past three years, due
to internal political pressure in several countries (see ahead).
12
( ) It should be noted that PISA questionnaires enquire directly about the language
spoken at home.

68