Structural Incorporation of the Second Generation in Europe: Racialization, Assimilation, or Immigrant Advantage?

Lucas Drouhot , Cornell University
Mauricio Bucca, European University Institute

A tension exists within the literature of the structural attainment of the children of immigrants in Europe. Overall, the recent literature documents a decrease in the significance of ethnic origins on education and occupational attainment, net of social origins. Some in this literature document a pattern of second-generation advantage, while the literature on ethnic penalties nevertheless document persistent barriers to structural integration among the second generation. In this article, we attempt at resolving this debate by using a large, harmonized dataset and comparing intergenerational social mobility patterns among natives and second-generation immigrants in seven European countries. Using a mix of loglinear models and multinomial logits, we find class attainment patterns among immigrants to be largely similar to natives, thus pointing to an overall pattern of assimilation as social reproduction without ethnic disadvantage nor ethnic advantage. These results have important implications for ongoing debates about the direction of immigrant incorporation and social policy.

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 Presented in Session 76. Children of Immigrants