Immigrants with a foreign education have the most significant employment probability gap (13 p.p.) relative to natives (Figure 3). Such a gap cannot be explained by differences in the age, gender and educational composition of the two populations: when compared to natives with the same demographic profile, the employment probability gap of foreign-educated immigrants is still ten percentage points.
Overall, according to Eurostat data, there were about 905 thousand naturalizations across European countries in 2021, a
40% increase relative to the 648 thousand naturalizations in 2011. Besides 2021, a second major annual peak of naturalizations happened in 2016, when more than 900 thousand immigrants naturalized across the whole Europe.
Almost one fourth of immigrant women in Europe (24%, 25% in EU14 countries) are employed in “elementary occupations”, i.e., occupations that require a low level of skills and competences as they consist of simple and routine tasks, which often demand some physical effort and the use of hand-held tools.
The data suggests that immigrants may have been more exposed than natives to the coronavirus-induced crisis that has unfolded during 2020, and Italy was the first European country strongly hit by the virus.
How can such a large additional immigrant-specific gender gap be explained? In this article we investigate the role of reason for migration in the determination of labour market outcomes.
Women are overrepresented in the bottom decile while the top income decile is dominated by men, but immigrant women are by far the most disadvantaged, with 18% in the bottom income decile, and almost half of them concentrated in the three lowest income deciles (49%).
It is well known that women have, in general, a lower employment probability than men. The employment probability of immigrant women is 58%: immigrant women are 14 percentage points (or 19%) less likely than native women to have a job.
