Immigration is once again at the forefront of policy debate in many European countries. Public opinion
concerns are caused not only by the recent refugees crisis but also by the increases in intra-EU mobility
and in the inflows of economic migrants in the Union. Using data from the latest editions of the European
Labour Force Survey, the Migration Observatory Annual Reports provide fresh and updated evidence on the
economic integration of immigrants in Europe, focusing especially on their labour market outcomes.
This is the fourth edition of the Migration Observatory annual report on immigrant integration in Europe, which this year focuses in particular on the regional dimensions of immigration.
As in previous years, in the first part we use data from the latest edition of the European Labour Force Survey (2018) to provide a concise, easily accessible and up-to-date source of reference regarding the size, characteristics, and relative economic performance of immigrants in EU countries. In the second part, instead, we explore the geography of migration.
We show that clustering and agglomeration, in regions and in occupations, play a central role in shaping immigrant integration. Immigrants’ employment probability is – on average – not too different from that of natives, also because immigrants are concentrated in the most economically successful regions within a country. However, immigrants have considerably lower wages than natives, largely because they tend to be employed in low pay occupations. The tension between living in richer regions and performing low skilled jobs may contribute to explain the common misperceptions of natives with respect to immigration.
Download the 4th Migration Observatory Report
Professor of Economics at the Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods of the University of Milan. He is also a Research Fellow CEPR, at CReAM, the Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration at University College London (UCL), at Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano (LdA) and at IZA. He received his PhD in Economics from University College London in 2010. His main research interests are in Applied Microeconomics, Labour Economics and the Economics of Migration. His work has been published in journals such as the Review of Economic Studies, the Journal of the European Eocnomic Association, the Economic Journal, the Journal of Economic Geography, and Economic Policy among others.
Website
PhD candidate at the University of Geneva (CH). He holds a BSc in International Relations from the University of Turin and a MSc in Economics and Political Science from the University of Milan.
He is generally interested in Empirical Microeconomics and in the link between socio-economic mobility and individuals’ lifetime choices such as education and migration. Currently, the main focus of his research is in intergenerational mobility and Urban Economics. In 2020 he worked at the Migration Observatory of Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano, investigating migration and integration patterns in Europe.
