Exploring the evidence

• Author: Biletta, Isabella; Vanderleyden, Julie; Brandsma, Nils; Weber, Tina
• Pages: 5-20

5

Exploring the evidence

This section describes the labour market

integration and working conditions of people

with a foreign background in the EU. The

analysis compares their experiences of work

with that of natives – defined as people born in

the country where they reside, whose parents

were also born there.

The study also breaks down the broad group of

workers with a foreign background into two:

£first-generation migrants: individuals not

born in the country where they reside,

whose parents were not born in that

country either

£second-generation migrants: individuals

born in the country where they reside, with

one or both parents not born in that

country

As well as distinguishing the generations, the

analysis looks at gender differences to discover

if these are amplified by having a foreign

background. Layering the analysis in this way

will highlight contrasting experiences within

the non-native working population.

The analysis is based on two data sources.

The data on working conditions come from the

2015 European Working Conditions Survey

(EWCS). Statistics on employment are taken

from Eurostat’s 2014 EU Labour Force Survey

(EU-LFS) ad hoc module on the labour market

situation of migrants and their descendants.

The ad hoc module data have been used

because they are temporally comparable with

the EWCS data and because, unlike the annual

EU-LFS migration data, they provide separate

information on first- and second-generation

migrants.

The EU-LFS identifies the country of

origin of respondents, which enables the

analysis of employment to distinguish

between workers with a foreign

background born in the EU and those

born outside the EU. The EWCS, however,

does not record respondents’ country of

origin, so in the examination of working

conditions, it is not possible to

differentiate the experiences of people

with EU and non-EU backgrounds.

EU and non-EU origin

6

Prevalence of foreign

background

According to Eurostat data, in 2014, 12% of

individuals of working age residing in the EU

were foreign born (first generation): 8% were

born outside the EU and 4% in an EU Member

State other than the reporting country.

A further 6% of individuals of working age had

a foreign or mixed background (second

generation). The distribution of people with a

foreign background was roughly equal by sex,

with a slight predominance of women.

Significant differences exist between countries

in terms of the breakdown of foreign-born

nationals according to whether they were born

inside or outside the EU (Figure 1). Among the

countries with available data, in only four –

Luxembourg, Hungary, Slovakia and Czechia –

do the majority of foreign-born individuals

have their origins in another EU country.

For most countries, the origins of foreign-born

individuals reflect geographical, linguistic or

historical ties, including the history of

colonialism.

Looking at data including all workers with a

foreign background (Figure 2), Luxembourg

has by far the highest share of residents who

are either first- or second-generation migrants

(65%) followed by Estonia (33%), Sweden

(31%), Latvia (29%) and Austria (29%).

First-generation migrants outnumber

second-generation migrants in most

countries where data are available except in

Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, France, Latvia,

Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia. The lowest

shares of population with a foreign

background can be found in Bulgaria and

Romania (1% and 0.2%, respectively).

How your birthplace affects your workplace

Figure 1: Origin of foreign-born individuals in EU Member States (%), 2014

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Born in EU country Born in non-EU country

Luxembourg

Hungary

Slovakia

Czechia

Cyprus

Belgium

Austria

Germany

Finland

Malta

United Kingdom

Poland

Italy

Spain

Portugal

Sweden

Slovenia

France

Greece

Croatia

Latvia

Estonia

Lithuania

Notes: People aged 15–64 years. No data for Bulgaria, Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands and Romania.

Source: Eurostat, Population by sex, age, migration status, country of birth and country of birth of parents [lfso_14pcobp]