The Second Generation in Europe: Education and the Transition to the Labor Market

In this report, authors Maurice Crul and Jens Schneider examine the findings of a survey conducted by The Integration of the European Second Generation (TIES), a project aimed at creating the first systematic and rigorously standardized European dataset on immigrant integration. This particular survey compares data for second-generation Turks with parents of comparable backgrounds—modestly educated labor migrants of rural origin—across contextual factors in seven European countries (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland) in order to explore why educational outcomes vary within the target group, and identify what works and what does not, particularly in the fields of education and labor.

Differences in the structural characteristics of school systems and labor markets in each country are identified and analyzed in terms of their effects on the educational outcomes of second-generation Turks. Comparisons in the level of segregation in school settings, access to pre-academic tracks as opposed to pre-vocational tracks, secondary and post-secondary drop-out rates, availability of academic support networks, and unemployment rates are then used  to determine locales or institutions in which arrangements are most favorable for immigrant integration. The report also draws a number of broader conclusions from the survey and offers that the educational attainment of second generation children is directly related to a number of key factors.