Structural Integration of Immigrants and the Second Generation in Europe:
A Study of Unemployment Durations and Job Destinations in Luxembourg, Belgium and Germany
Author: Hartung, Anne , anne.hartung@gmail.com
Department: Sociology (CESO)
University: University of Leuven (KULeuven), Belgium
Supervisor: Prof. Marc Swyngedouw
Year of completion: 2010
Language of dissertation: EN
Keywords:
school-to-work transition
, unemployment
, ethnicity and migration
, labour market outcomes
Areas of Research:
Stratification
, Migration
, Youth
Abstract
This study contributes to the literature on ethnic labour market inequalities with four empirical analyses of the transition (from school) to work of young job seekers in three former “guest-worker countries”: Belgium, Germany and Luxembourg. The aim is to add to the understanding of the integration of ethnic minorities by revealing more complexity in this process than other studies. What is innovative here, besides the analysis of data which has not been used for this purpose before, is the inclusion of additional variables, and thus the consideration of different explanations for ethnic disadvantages, and most importantly, the differentiation of employment-specific labour market mechanisms, which show that ethnic labour market segregation begins already with labour market entry. Starting from raw ethnic differences mimicking indicators that do not control for background characteristics, I hypothesise that these can be explained by human capital, socio-economic and other background characteristics other studies have not been taking into account. The focus of the study lies, however, on the effect of segregational patterns on the labour market, which have only rarely been simultaneously analysed with unemployment durations, on the assessment of the minorities’ structural integration. In other words, how does the operationalisation of employment outcomes influence the ethnic discrepancies found and their explanation? The literature review leads me to the expectation that overlapping and opposed mechanisms cancel each other out and lead to an underestimation of the ethnic gap.
