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Indicators of Immigrant
Integration 2015
Settling In

Indicators of Immigrant
Integration
2015
SETTLING IN

This work is published under the responsibility of the Secretary-General of the OECD. The
opinions expressed and arguments employed herein do not necessarily reflect the official
views of OECD member countries or the European Union.
This document and any map included herein are without prejudice to the status of or
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OECD/European Union (2015), Indicators of Immigrant Integration 2015: Settling In, OECD Publishing,
Paris.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264234024-en

FOREWORD
INDICATORS OF IMMIGRANT INTEGRATION 2015: SETTLING IN © OECD/EUROPEAN UNION 2015 3
Foreword
This publication presents the first broad international comparison across all EU and OECD countries
of the outcomes for immigrants and their children. It is the fruit of a joint co-operation between the
European Commission (DG Migration and Home Affairs) and the OECD’s International Migration
Division, in the perspective of a regular monitoring of comparable indicators of integration across EU and
OECD countries. This report has been produced with the financial assistance of the European Union.
This publication builds on a first set of indicators presented for OECD countries in the 2012
OECD Publication “Settling In” and draws on the data and information gathered through its work on
integration issues carried out by the OECD’s International Migration Division. It also benefited from
data provided by Eurostat and specific data requests to EU and OECD countries. This publication
would not have been possible without the support of the Delegates to the OECD Working Party on
Migration who provided valuable support in the data collection for this report.
Chapter 1 provides an overview of the issues involved and the main findings. Chapters 2 to 4
present contextual information on immigrant populations. Chapter 2 makes basic socio-demographic
comparisons with the native-born, while Chapter 3 focuses on factors specific to the immigrant
population, such as reasons for migrating, countries of origin, and length of residence. Chapter 4
supplies background on the composition of immigrant households and how they compare with their
native-born peers.
Against the background set out in the Chapters 2-4, the remainder of the publication goes on to
consider actual indicators of integration: Chapter 5 looks at key indicators of immigrants’ participation
in the labour market, an important component of their integration in the work force. Chapter 6
examines another aspect of labour market integration – indicators that assess the quality aspects
of immigrants’ jobs. Chapter 7 addresses education and training in immigrant integration.
Chapters 8-10 consider several aspects of social inclusion: household income in Chapter 8, housing in
Chapter 9, and health status and access to healthcare in Chapter 10. Chapter 11 addresses civic
engagement. Chapter 12 deals with some measurable aspects of social cohesion, namely
discrimination and host society opinions of immigration.
This publication also includes two large special chapters. Chapter 13 looks at young people with a
migrant background. Chapter 14 discusses third-country nationals – i.e. non-EU nationals living in an
EU country – and examines outcomes measured against the EU “Zaragoza indicators” of integration.
This publication has been drafted by Yves Breem and Cécile Thoreau under the supervision of
Thomas Liebig. Rachele Poggi provided statistical assistance. The publication also benefited from
contributions by Jeffrey Mo, Jan Saver and Anne-Mareike Vanselow. Ken Kincaid provided the
editing, and Marlène Mohier and Sylviane Yvron publication support.
Many useful comments were received from Jean-Christophe Dumont, Mark Pearson and
Stefano Scarpetta (all OECD) as well as from Simona Ardovino, Laurent Aujean, Jan Saver, and
Eva Schulz (all DG Migration and Home Affairs) as well as from several officials from other DG Home
Units, DG Employment and Eurostat.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Table of contents
Editorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Executive summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Chapter 1. Introduction and overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.1. Information on the integration of immigrants and their children is key
for a proper policy debate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.2. Compiling indicators at the international level is challenging but fruitful . . . 17
1.3. Key cross-cutting findings on the integration of immigrants and their children. 21
1.4. Classifying immigrant destination countries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Notes, sources, and further reading. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Chapter 2. Socio-demographic characteristics of immigrant populations . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Key findings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
2.1. Size and share living in densely populated areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
2.2. Composition by age and gender . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
2.3. Endogamous partnership and fertility. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Data limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Annex 2.A1. Additional tables and figures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Chapter 3. Defining characteristics of immigrant populations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Key findings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.1. Composition of new immigration flows by category. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
3.2. Duration of stay, regions of origin, and citizenship. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
3.3. Language of origin and languages usually spoken at home. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Chapter 4. Characteristics of immigrant households . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Key findings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
4.1. Definition and size of immigrant households . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
4.2. Composition of immigrant households. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INDICATORS OF IMMIGRANT INTEGRATION 2015: SETTLING IN © OECD/EUROPEAN UNION 2015
6
Chapter 5. Labour market outcomes of immigrants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Key findings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
5.1. Employment and activity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
5.2. Unemployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
5.3. Risk of labour market exclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Chapter 6. Quality of immigrants’ jobs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Key findings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
6.1. Types of contracts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
6.2. Working hours . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
6.3. Job skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
6.4. Overqualification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
6.5. Self-employment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
6.6. Employment in the public services sector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Chapter 7. Cognitive skills and training of immigrant adults. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Key findings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
7.1. Level of educational attainment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
7.2. Adult literacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
7.3. Access to adult education and training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
7.4. Work-related training for adults. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
Chapter 8. Income of immigrant households. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Key findings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
8.1. Household income distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
8.2. Poverty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
8.3. In-work poverty. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
8.4. Financial exclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
Chapter 9. Immigrants and housing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Key findings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
9.1. Housing tenure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
9.2. Overcrowded housing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
9.3. Housing conditions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
9.4. Housing cost overburden. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 10. Immigrants’ health status and their health care . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
Key findings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
10.1. Self-reported health status. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
10.2. Health care . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
Annex 10.A1. Additional tables and figures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
Chapter 11. Civic engagement of immigrants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Key findings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
11.1. Acquisition of nationality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
11.2. Voter participation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
Chapter 12. Social cohesion and immigrants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Key findings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
12.1. Perceived discrimination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
12.2. Host-society attitudes towards immigration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
Chapter 13. Young people with a migrant background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
Key findings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
13.1. Immigrant and native-born immigrant offspring populations
in the 15-34 age group. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
13.2. Regions of parental origin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
13.3. Endogamy and mixed couples. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
13.4. Participation in early childhood education programmes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
13.5. Reading literacy at 15 years old. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
13.6. Proportions of pupils who lack basic reading skills at 15 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
13.7. Young adults’ educational attainment levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
13.8. Young adults’ literacy skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
13.9. Early school leaving. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
13.10. Transition from school to work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
13.11. Neither in employment, education or training. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
13.12. Employment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
13.13. Unemployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
13.14. Overqualification. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264
13.15. Employment in the public services sector. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
13.16. Child poverty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
13.17. Voter participation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
13.18. Perceived discrimination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272

TABLE OF CONTENTS
8
Chapter 14. Third-country nationals in the European Union . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
Key findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
14.1. Size and composition by age and gender. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
14.2. Places of birth and length of residence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
14.3. Employment and activity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306
14.4. Unemployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310
14.5. Self-employment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314
14.6. Overqualification. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
14.7. Educational attainment and literacy skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318
14.8. Household income distribution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
14.9. Poverty. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
14.10. Housing tenure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
14.11. Self-reported health status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326
14.12. Long-term residents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328
14.13. Voter participation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330
14.14. Acquisition of nationality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332
14.15. Perceived discrimination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334
Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
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EDITORIAL
Editorial
The issue of immigration and the integration of immigrants and their children are high
on the policy agenda of EU and OECD countries, both from an economic and a social
standpoint. The active participation of immigrants and their children in the labour market
and, more generally, in public life is vital for ensuring social cohesion in the host country
and the ability of migrants to function as autonomous, productive and successful,
self-realised citizens. This is also critical for facilitating their acceptance by the
host-country population.
Immigration and the integration of immigrants are also repeatedly mentioned as one
of the main issues of concern in public opinion surveys in many countries. At the same
time, there are many preconceptions about the actual integration outcomes of immigrants
and their children. Against this backdrop, having reliable facts is a prerequisite for a better-
informed public debate and for better targeted policy making.
To contribute to this aim, this publication presents the first broad international
comparison across all EU and OECD countries of the outcomes for immigrants and their
children. It covers all main areas of integration and includes a special focus on two
concrete groups. The first group is that of young people with an immigrant background,
whose outcomes are often seen as the benchmark for the success or failure of integration.
Indeed, with growing numbers of young people with immigrant parents in virtually all
countries, it is essential to better understand their economic and social integration,
including the degree to which their outcomes may be attributable to the foreign origin of
their parents.
The second group are third-country nationals in the European Union, who are the
target of EU integration policy. The EU has identified key indicators that monitor the results
of integration policies in the areas of employment, education, social inclusion and active
citizenship. Introduced at a ministerial conference under the Spanish presidency of the EU,
in 2010, these indicators are now known as the “Zaragoza indicators” and are analysed in
this publication for the first time for all EU countries – along with further indicators of
integration.
The international comparisons of integration outcomes provide policy-makers with
benchmarks so that they can compare results in their own country with those of other
countries. They also reveal aspects of integration which national data often do not capture
and allow comparing trends across countries which also helps to focus on the most
relevant issues. These international comparisons are not intended to be used to rank
countries, but rather to put into perspective the differences between them.

EDITORIAL
10
This publication identifies peer groups of countries with similar challenges so as to
promote the exchange of experiences and practices. This should help countries to design
better policies for the better integration of immigrants and their children – to the benefit of
both host-country societies and immigrants themselves.
Indeed, successful integration means equal opportunities for immigrants, ensuring
they become an integral part of society. In most countries, there is still some way to go to
achieve this goal. We hope that the facts and figures in this report will help our countries
to advance in the pursuit of this objective.
Angel Gurría Dimitris Avramopoulos
Secretary-General of the OECD European Commissioner for Migration,
Home Affairs and Citizenship

Indicators of Immigrant Integration 2015
Settling In
11
Executive summary
In 2012, one in ten people living in the EU and OECD areas was born abroad, totalling around
115 million immigrants in the OECD and 52 million in the EU, of which 33.5 million were from
non-EU countries. In both the EU and the OECD, the immigrant population has grown by
more than 30% since 2000. This report presents a detailed international comparison of the
outcomes of immigrants and their children in all EU and OECD countries, in the areas of
labour market, education, income, housing, health, civic engagement, and social cohesion,
accompanied by comprehensive background information.
In most areas, immigrants tend to have lower outcomes than the native-born, though
not always by much. Outcomes tend to be less favourable in European countries, partly
because immigrants in these countries have less favourable socio-demographic
characteristics than the native-born. At the same time, whereas immigrants with higher
levels of qualifications have better outcomes than those with lower levels, higher
education protects them less well against disadvantage than it does for the native-born.
Nevertheless, gaps between immigrant and native-born populations tend to reduce over
time, as immigrants become more familiar with the host-country.
Key findings for immigrants in the OECD and EU
● Integration challenges do not increase with the share of immigrants in the population.
There is no obvious link between the proportion of immigrants in the total population
and immigrant integration outcomes. If anything, countries that are home to high
proportions of immigrants tend to have better integration outcomes.
● In virtually all countries, income inequality is higher among immigrants than among the
native-born. This reflects the wide diversity of the immigrant populations.
● In 2012-13, two in three immigrants in OECD countries were employed – a proportion
that was one percentage point higher than among the native-born. In the EU, the figures
are slightly less favourable and the employment rate of immigrants (62%) is three
percentage points lower than that of the native-born.
● One in three immigrants of working age in the OECD and one in four in the EU holds a
tertiary education degree. A high level of education makes it easier to join the labour
market. Yet immigrants with higher-education degrees struggle more to enter the
workplace than their native-born peers.
● Around two-thirds of all immigrants obtained their highest qualifications abroad.
Forty-two percent of highly-educated, foreign-educated immigrants working in the EU
have jobs that would only require lower levels of education. This is twice the number of
their foreign-born peers who hold qualifications from the host country.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
12
● Having a job affords protection against poverty, but less so among immigrants.
Immigrants in employment are twice as likely as their native-born peers to live in a
household whose income is below the country’s relative poverty threshold.
● Partly as a result of their lower income, immigrants are more than twice as likely to live
in overcrowded accommodation as their native-born peers (19% versus 8%), OECD-wide.
● Immigrants are more likely to experience involuntary inactivity, that is, willing to work
but not actively seeking work. Across the EU, a higher proportion of inactive immigrants
(21%) than inactive native-born (16%) declare that they are willing to work. Shares are
slightly lower in the OECD (17% versus 14%).
● Almost two-thirds of settled immigrants have adopted the nationality of their host
country.
Key findings for third-country nationals in the EU
This publication offers a special focus on “third-country”, or non-EU, nationals in the
European Union, who are a target group for EU integration policy. A full set of indicators of
integration for third-country nationals is presented here for the first time.
● Differences in outcomes between third-country nationals and host country nationals
tend to be greater than those between foreign-born (whatever their nationality) and
native-born. This is partly because foreigners are more likely to be recent arrivals, as
citizenship take-up increases with time spent in the host country.
● The employment rate of third-country nationals is below that of EU nationals in virtually
all EU countries. For both groups, similar proportions are employed among the low-
educated. In contrast, third-country nationals with higher education degrees have
greater trouble finding a job than their EU peers.
● The poverty rate of third-country national households is twice as high as among host-
country national households.
Key findings for youth with an immigrant background
The publication also includes a special focus on youth aged 15-34 who are either
foreign-born or native-born with immigrant parents, a group whose outcomes are often
seen as the benchmark for the success or failure of integration. In 2013, in the 22 EU and
OECD countries for which data are available, nearly 20% of 15-34 year-olds was native-born
with at least one immigrant parent or immigrated as a child. A further 9% arrived in the
host country as adults. In European countries, the outcomes of such youth tend to be lower
than those of other youth, in contrast to what is observed in the non-European
OECD countries. This reflects the often less favourable characteristics of their parents.
Nevertheless, the outcomes of native-born youth with immigrant parents tend to be better
than those of their peers who have themselves immigrated.
● School performance at age 15 improves the longer pupils have resided in the host
country, and the native offspring of foreign-born parentage outperform immigrants who
arrived during their childhood.
● A high concentration of children of immigrants in schools is only an issue if their parents
are low-educated, as is often the case in EU countries.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
● In the OECD in 2012, an average of only 6% of immigrant students from disadvantaged
socio-economic backgrounds are among the top performers despite their background,
compared with 12% among their peers of native-born parentage.
● Education is a strong driver of the labour market integration of youth from migrant
backgrounds; among men, the increase in employment rates for high- compared to
low-educated is even slightly larger than among their peers without a migration
background.
● In the EU, the youth unemployment rate among native-born immigrant offspring is
almost 50% higher than among the young with native-born parents. In non-EU
OECD countries, the rates of the two groups are similar.
● Since 2007-08, youth employment rates among those of migrant background have
deteriorated in most countries, more than among the offspring of the native-born,
especially among men.
● Native-born immigrant offspring in the EU are more likely to report being discriminated
against than their peers who are foreign-born and immigrated to the EU. This stands in
marked contrast to the non-European OECD countries.

Settling In
15
Chapter 1
Introduction and overview
1.1. Information on the integration of immigrants and their children is key
for a proper policy debate
The integration of immigrants and their children is high on the policy agenda of EU
and OECD countries for a number of reasons. Flows of immigrants into many countries
have increased over the past two decades and the labour markets have seen an increasing
number of immigrant offspring. Integrating immigrants and their children into the labour
market and society as a whole is vital for promoting social cohesion and economic growth
of host countries and the ability of migrants to become self-reliant, productive citizens. It
is also a frequent prerequisite for the host population’s acceptance of further immigration.
However, many preconceptions shape public perceptions of immigrants. It is therefore
crucial to provide policy makers and the public with solid facts and figures. They make it
possible to assess integration outcomes of immigrants and their children over time and to
address the right questions and challenges. Although integration indicators are not
necessarily, in themselves, gauges of integration policies, they do point to successes and
failures and so shed light on possible policy responses. This first chapter discusses the
benefits of developing monitoring tools of integration at the international level, based on
harmonised concepts and definitions, and presents cross-cutting issues.
The discussion of the various concepts of “integration” as it applies to immigrants is
beyond the scope of this publication. Its focus is on indicators used in statistical measures
of the economic and social convergence between immigrants and the native-born. That
approach poses two sets of issues:
● how the immigrant population should be defined and to which subset of the population
their outcomes should be compared
● how to use indicators to measure integration.
Who are the immigrants?
Countries tend to have different groups in mind when they refer to their “immigrant
population”. While settlement countries (Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the
United States) and Central and South America deem anyone born abroad an immigrant,

1. INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW
16
Europe has a range of concepts that include factors like current citizenship, birth-right
citizenship, and self-reported ethnicity. In Japan and Korea, statistics predominantly use
the notion of nationality.
However, unlike their places of birth, peoples’ citizenship can change over time. In
addition, conditions for obtaining host-country citizenship vary widely, hampering
international comparisons. In countries that are more liberal in this respect –
e.g. OECD countries that have been settled by migration – most foreign nationals may
naturalise after five years’ residence. Some European countries, such as Sweden, have
similar requirements. In others, like Switzerland and Luxembourg, even many native-born
immigrant offspring are not citizens of the host country.
This report defines immigrants as the foreign-born population. There are many
reasons why the outcomes of immigrants – particularly those who arrived as adults – tend
to differ from those of the native-born population. They have been raised and educated in
an environment – and often in a language – that may be different from that of their host
country. And some elements of their foreign origin will always be part of them. Although
some of these may affect their full integration, they generally become less of a hindrance
the longer migrants reside in the host country.
Issues are very different when it comes to the native-born offspring of immigrants. As
they have been raised and educated in the host country, they should not be facing the same
obstacles as their immigrant parents and outcomes similar to those of their peers of
native-born parentage may be expected. In many respects, the outcomes of the native-born
offspring of immigrants are thus key benchmarks of integration (Card, 2004). The situation
of people who are foreign-born, but arrived as children when they were still of mandatory
schooling age, is also different from those who came as adults.
The report presents, for the first time, a comprehensive overview of the population
with a migrant background – the native-born offspring of immigrants with one or two
foreign-born parents, the foreign-born who arrived as children, and the foreign-born who
arrived as adults. The report examines the first two groups with particular focus on their
youth.1
In 2013, one in ten people residing in the OECD and the EU was born abroad – over
115 and 50 million respectively (Figure 1.1). Over a quarter of these people arrived before
the age of 15. Native-born offspring with at least one foreign-born parent account for a
further 8% of the population in the OECD and 6% in the EU. More than half of the
native-born population with a migrant background have two foreign-born parents (and are
often referred to as the “second generation”). The exceptions are France, Israel as well as
some Central and Eastern European countries that were affected by border changes and/or
where the immigrant population is predominantly old (the Czech and Slovak Republics,
Poland, and Romania).
In the OECD, among the countries for which data are available, 18% of the population
have some migrant background, either because they are themselves foreign-born or
because they have at least one immigrant parent. The figure is 16% in the European Union.
In Israel and Luxembourg, more than 60% of the population have a migration background,
while proportions in other countries – Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Switzerland –
exceed 40%. Only a handful of countries – Korea, Japan, Hungary, the Slovak Republic, and
Poland – have less than 5% of migrant background.

How is integration measured?
Measuring integration calls for a benchmark against which outcomes can be assessed.
This report compares the outcomes of immigrants with those of the native-born, and the
outcomes of the native-born offspring of both groups with each other. The most common
ways of measuring the outcomes of a target group against those of a reference group are:
as differences in outcomes expressed in percentage points and as a ratio between the
two outcomes.
Focussing on unemployment, the two measurements yield different country rankings,
as shown in Figure 1.2. Norway and Switzerland, for example, are among the top of the
ranking when it comes to the ratio of immigrant to native-born unemployment rates, while
differences in unemployment rates between the foreign- and native-born populations put
them much further down, with Spain and Greece showing the widest gaps. Although both
measurements assess differences in average foreign- and native-born rates, ratios
disregard magnitude. Whereas the immigrant unemployment rate in Norway catches the
eye for being over three times higher, it actually stands at just 7.7% – one of the lowest in
the OECD. This report consequently presents indicators both as absolute values and as
differences in percentage points, but rarely as a ratio.
1.2. Compiling indicators at the international level is challenging but fruitful
In many respects, international comparisons of integration outcomes are challenging.
First, because the characteristics of immigrant (that is, foreign-born) populations vary
widely across countries and change over time within each of them. Second, comparing
immigrant outcomes from country to country can be used to assess the success of
“integration”, only if it takes into account country-specific economic and social contexts,
which contribute to shaping these outcomes.Third, international comparisons often suffer
from a lack of reliable and harmonised data across countries. National data must therefore
Figure 1.1. Immigrants and native-born offspring of immigrants, 2013 or most recent year
Percentage of the total population
Notes and sources are to be found at the end of the chapter.
1 2 http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/888933212017
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18
be adapted to comply with common categories and definitions, losing some of their
specificity and links with country-specific characteristics.
The added value of international comparisons
Nevertheless, international comparisons bring much added value to indicators at the
national level. They can, in particular, act as benchmarks for assessing national
performance and help interpret the magnitude of differences; for example, whether or not
a 5 percentage points lower employment rates for immigrants is little or a lot. International
comparisons can also help to focus on the right issues and identify challenges that are not
necessarily visible from evidence from individual countries. It is commonly claimed, for
example, especially in Europe, that concentrations of immigrants in the same schools risks
impairing the overall educational performance.
What does emerge is that, in all countries, immigrant children’s academic
performance is systematically lower in schools where there are high proportions of
children with poorly educated parents. On average, they lag more than two years behind
their peers in schools with few such students. And in many countries there is a close
correlation between the two groups – in other words, schools with large numbers of
immigrant children are also those where many pupils have parents with low levels of
education. In this instance, international comparisons help focus on the right issue: the
educational background of parents, not where they come from.
Figure 1.2. Unemployment rates of foreign-born compared
with native-born aged 15 to 64, 2012-13
-3 0 0 1 2 3 0 10 20 30 40
3 6 9 12
Difference in % points Ratio to native-born
Immigrant
unemployment rates
Korea
Greece
Chile
Norway
Slovak Republic
Israel*
Hungary
United States
Poland
Lituania
New Zealand
Australia
Cyprus1, 2
United Kingdom
Ireland
Canada
Czech Republic
Portugal
Japan
Korea
Turkey
OECD total(34)
Italy
Slovenia
Greece
Mexico
Spain
Malta
EU total(28)
Iceland
Germany
France
Luxembourg
Finland
Denmark
Netherlands
Austria
Switzerland
Sweden
Belgium
Slovak Republic
Spain
Chile
Hungary
Israel*
Lituania
Poland
United States
New Zealand
Australia
Korea
Cyprus1, 2
United Kingdom
Canada
Czech Republic
Japan
Mexico
Turkey
Ireland
OECD total (34)
Luxembourg
Malta
Germany
Iceland
Slovenia
Switzerland
Italy
Portugal
Austria
Norway
EU total (28)
Netherlands
Finland
Denmark
France
Sweden
Belgium
Greece
Israel*
Australia
Chile
Luxembourg
New Zealand
Switzerland
Mexico
United States
Norway
Japan
Canada
Germany
Czech Republic
Austria
United Kingdom
Iceland
Hungary
Malta
Poland
OECD total(34)
Slovak Republic
Turkey
Netherlands
Lituania
Slovenia
Denmark
Finland
Cyprus1, 2
Italy
EU total(28)
France
Sweden
Ireland
Belgium
Portugal
Spain

Integration is a multidimensional process, and some aspects are more difficult
to measure than others
The effective integration of migrants is not an economic and labour-market process
alone. It also has social, educational – even spatial – facets. None, though, are mutually
exclusive: disadvantage and the failure to integrate in one dimension are likely to have
multiple repercussions. Concentrations of migrants in geographically disadvantaged areas,
for example, may affect effective integration in the education system and, later, the labour
market.
However, harmonised indicators relating to migrant integration are easier to identify
in some areas than in others. While the extent of labour market integration can be
approximated using outcomes from large standardised cross-country surveys, it is harder
to capture social integration where measures often rely on surveys of attitudes, feelings,
and perceptions. Although such subjective indicators go some way towards measuring how
at home migrants feel in their host society, they are prone to a number of problems. Cross-
country comparisons may draw on non-harmonised data sources, for example, or different
national contexts may shape subjective measures.
Integration is, and must be, a multidimensional process. Failure in any one field is
likely to severely jeopardise progress in others. Capturing integration’s multiple domains in
easily comparable indicators inevitably involves some degree of simplification and
approximation. Taken together, however, they paint a more subtle picture of the success of
migrant integration across OECD countries.
To fully interpret immigrants’ integration outcomes, the composition of the immigrant
population must be considered as well. Context-related facts and figures are crucial to the
proper interpretation of immigrants’ actual outcomes and observed differences with
native-born populations. The use of indicators to depict migrant integration outcomes in
all spheres entails a degree of simplification that must be factored into cross-country
comparisons. From one OECD country to another, the migrant population may be made up
of quite different groups – depending on geographical, linguistic, and policy factors. In
Sweden, for example, which takes in a large number of humanitarian migrants, the
migrant population differs quite substantially from that of the United Kingdom, where
many immigrants come to work. Furthermore, even within each country, immigrants are
not a homogenous group.
Table 1.1 presents an overview of this contextual information and the areas of
integration and the indicators included in this publication. The key indicators are also
presented separately for two key focus groups of this publication, that is youth with a
migrant background (Chapter 13) and third-country (non-EU) nationals in the EU, the
so-called “Zaragoza Indicators” (Chapter 14).

20
Table 1.1. Contextual information and areas of immigrant integration considered
in the publication
Description Measured by
Contextual information
Socio-demographic
characteristics
(Chapter 2)
Integration outcomes are shaped by socio-demographic
factors, such as age and gender. Understanding differences
in immigrants’ socio-demographic characteristics across
countries and with their native-born counterparts is a
prerequisite for the interpretation of integration outcomes.
Distribution by age and gender
Endogamous partnership and fertility
Defining characteristics
ofimmigrantpopulations
(Chapter 3)
Discrepancies in outcomes between immigrants
and the native-born sometimes spring directly from the
migration process itself. The very fact of being born abroad
may constitute an obstacle in that, for example, the immigrant
may lack the native-born in-depth knowledge of the host society
(how the labour market functions, networks, familiarity
with public services, skills in the host-country language etc.).
Difficulties are supposed to vanish as the experience of the host
country increases.
Immigration flows by category of entry
Distribution of the immigrant populations by:
● Duration of stay
● Regions of origin
● Citizenship
● Language of origin
● Language spoken at home
Household
characteristics
(Chapter 4)
Household and family structures are determinants of a number
of integration outcomes. For example, the home environment
(whether parents are present and the size of the family)
has an impact on children’s school performance, which in turn
affects their economic integration later on. Family structure also
determines such living conditions as income and housing,
as well as the ability of adults to both work and support
their children.
Average size of households
Composition of households
Area of Integration
Labour Market
Outcomes
(Chapter 5)
The participation of immigrants in the labour market is
fundamental since work is their chief source of income. It is key
for them to become part of the host country’s economic fabric
and also confers social standing vis-à-vis the host-country
population.
Employment rate
Activity rate
Unemployment rate
Long-term unemployment rate
Share of inactive who wish to work
Job quality
(Chapter 6)
The kind of job obtained by immigrants yields a more
comprehensive picture of the nature of their place in the labour
market than mere access to employment.
Jobs distribution by:
● Types of contracts
● Working hours
● Involuntary part-time
● Job skills
Overqualification rate
Share of self-employment
Share of employment in the “public services”
sector
Adult’s cognitive skills
and training
(Chapter 7)
Cognitive skills have a strong bearing on immigrants’ career
paths and are decisive determinants in their economic and
social integration. Access to training in the host country helps
immigrants to meet the requirements of the labour market more
closely and free up their skills potential.
Distribution by:
● Educational attainment
● Literacy skills
Participation in education and training
Share with unmet training needs
Participation in job-related training
Usefulness of job-related training
Household income
(Chapter 8)
Income is a decisive factor in determining many socio-
economic outcomes. Low income affects the well-being of
immigrants and can lead to marginalization and damage social
cohesion.
Poverty rate
In-work poverty rate
Share of households with a bank account
Share of households with an overdrawn bank
account
Housing (Chapter 9) Access to adequate housing is an important factor to improve
living conditions and well-being of immigrants and their family.
Home ownership rate
Share of renters at a reduced rate
Share of overcrowding dwellings
Share of substandard dwellings
Housing cost overburden rate

1.3. Key cross-cutting findings on the integration of immigrants and their children
Immigrants tend to have lower outcomes than the native-born, though not always
by much
Measured against most indicators, immigrants enjoy worse socio-economic outcomes
than the native-born on average. Some exceptions are noticeable with regard to employment
rate, labour force participation rate, share of self-employed and perceived health status, for
which the differences between foreign- and native-born are not significantly different from
zero (Table 1.2). With regard to access to the labour market, immigrants tend to make greater
efforts to compensate for any disadvantage in the labour market. Some studies have shown,
for instance, that immigrants tend to apply for more jobs than the native-born (see Liebig
and Huddleston, 2014) to eventually find a job. Furthermore, they are generally less fussy
about jobs, accepting ones that may not always match their skills. Indeed, indicators point to
wide and significant immigrant-native differences in overqualification. Differences between
immigrants and native-born remain large also, OECD and EU-wide, especially in job skills,
relative poverty and households overcrowding.
Integration improves when migrants stay longer
Integration is a process that occurs over time. The longer immigrants reside in a host
country, the more familiar they become with the way it functions, the more friends and
acquaintances they make and – where it is an issue – the better they master the host-
country language. In European OECD countries, for example, an additional year of
residence is associated with significant increases in immigrant employment rates and with
lower rates of over-qualification (Liebig and Huddleston, 2014). However, the impact of the
duration of stay varies across groups of migrants. Improvements that come with
experience in the host country are particularly pronounced among refugees.
Figure 1.3 shows the dispersion of outcomes among recent and settled immigrants
relative to those of the native-born across countries (“recent” migrants are defined as those
with less than ten years in the host country while the “settled” have resided in the host
country for over ten year). Immigrant-native differences tend to narrow as the duration of
residence lengthens. Furthermore, outcomes are generally less dispersed among settled
immigrants who have lived in the host country for at least ten years than among more recent
arrivals. However, the dispersion of outcomes and how much differences narrow vary from
indicator to indicator.
Health status and health
care (Chapter 10)
Health is integral to wellbeing and affects the degree and
manner of engagement with society as a whole.
Share of people reporting good health status or
better
Share of people who report unmet medical needs
Share of people who report not to have seen a
doctor
Civic engagement
(Chapter 11)
Becoming actively involved in the host country’s society shows
that immigrants are an integral part of their new country.
Naturalisation rate
Voter participation rate
Social cohesion
(Chapter 12)
Being an integral part of the society and actively involved in the
host country is a key element of immigrant integration. Since
integration is a two-way process, mutual acceptance and trust
are key conditions to social cohesion.
Share of immigrants who feel to have been
discriminated against
Share of people who think that their area is a good
place for migrants to live
Perceived economic impact of immigration
Table 1.1. Contextual information and areas of immigrant integration considered
in the publication (cont.)
Description Measured by

22
Table 1.2. Average differences between immigrants/children of immigrants
and the native-born/children of native-born against key indicators,
2013 or most recent year
Indicator OECD difference EU difference
Immigrants
Employment rate (5.1) -1.7 -1.9
Unemployment rate (5.2) 3.4 4.2
Labour force participation rate (5.1) 1.0 1.2
Share of workers hired under a temporary contract (6.1) 3.4 4.7
Share of workers in low-skilled jobs (6.3) 7.7 9.4
Share of self-employed (6.5) 0.6 0.7
Overqualification rate among highly-educated employed (6.4) 10.0 11.0
Share of highly educated (7.1) 3.7 4.0
Share with only basic literacy skills among the 16-64 years old (7.2) 18.9 18.3
Poverty rate (8.2) 12.7 12.3
Share reporting being in good health or better (10.1) -1.1 -0.3
Share of persons living in an overcrowded dwelling (9.2) 9.2 8.4
Share of persons living in an overcrowded or deprived dwelling (9.3) 10.9 8.1
Voter participation (11.2) -5.9 -5.5
Native-born immigrant offspring
Share of low achievers in reading at the age of 15 (13.6) 8.7 11.1
Share of persons aged 15-34 neither in employment, education or training (13.11) 5.3 8.4
Note: The numbers in brackets refer to the indicator in the publication. Differences between the outcomes of native-
born with two foreign-born parents and native-born with two native-born parents for the share of low achievers in
reading at the age of 15 and the share of 15-34 neither in employment, education or training. For all other indicators,
the foreign-born outcomes are compared with those of the native-born aged 15 to 64 (unless otherwise stated).
The OECD/EU differences show the difference between the foreign- and the native-born unweighted averages
(between the native-born immigrant offspring and the offspring of natives). The unweighted average considers each
country as a single entity with equal weight. This average is thus the arithmetical average derived from the statistics
of the countries whose data are available. Figures in bold are statistically different from zero.
Sources are to be found at the end of the chapter.
Figure 1.3. Dispersion of recent and settled foreign-born migrants measured against
key indicators relative to the native-born, 2012-13
Native-born = 100
400
350
250
150
300
200
100
50 50
150
250
350
450
550
650
750
Median
Highest quartile
Recent Settled Recent Settled Recent Settled Recent Settled Recent Settled Recent Settled
% employed % overqualified
among highly
educated
% employed
on a temporary job
% employed
in low-skilled jobs
% in lowest decile
of income
% in overcrowded dwelling
Lowest quartile

Integration shows some signs of improvement with regard to educational
attainment, although important gaps remain…
Over the last ten years, many EU and OECD countries have put significant efforts into
integration. In addition, new arrivals are, on average, better educated than longer-settled
immigrants. The result has been better outcomes in many countries, precisely for the most
recent arrivals. This also translated into better performances at school among immigrant
offspring. Indeed, in most countries, there has been an improvement in the educational
outcomes of the children of immigrants although they still often perform worse at school
than their peers with native-born parents.
That being said, in most countries, there is still a significant gap to be closed and
immigrant offspring also face more difficulties than their peers with native parents in
overcoming social disadvantage. An average of only 6% of immigrant students from
disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds are resilient – i.e. top performers despite their
background – compared with 9% among native-born students with immigrant parents and
12% among their peers of native-born parentage.
… and the economic crisis has put a halt to progress made in labour market
integration
In many countries, the 2007-08 global financial and economic crisis has hindered the
progress being made by immigrants, notably in labour market and economic integration.
Job losses have been greater among immigrants than the native-born. Foreign-born men,
who widely work in sectors more exposed to cyclical fluctuations, have been worse
affected than women. However, immigrant women have seen greater deterioration in the
quality of their jobs.
For immigrant offspring, education is a key driver of integration
Among both immigrants and their native-born offspring of both genders, labour
market outcomes tend to improve with higher levels of educational attainment. However,
improvement varies greatly in degree. It is weakest among immigrants – irrespective of
gender – who arrived as adults, since they have educational credentials from abroad which
host-country employers have trouble assessing and labour markets substantially
downgrade (Damas de Matos and Liebig, 2014). Training, which includes language courses,
can help immigrants secure recognition of their foreign qualifications and eventually enter
the labour market. Indeed, immigrants report that training was useful more often than
their native-born counterparts do. Yet they tend to participate less in such courses,
including on-the-job programmes, even though studies have shown them to be
particularly beneficial for labour market integration (Liebig and Huddleston, 2014).
Among children of immigrants, improvements in employment rates associated with
high levels of education are large for both gender. Among young men of immigrant parents
in the EU, education is even a slightly stronger driver of better employment prospects than
it is for their peers of native-born parents. However, in most countries under review,
highly-educated men born in the country to migrant parents still perform less well than
their peers with no such background on the labour market. The gaps are even larger for
women.

24
There is progress “across generations”…
Since immigrant offspring are raised and educated in the host country, their outcomes
are more often similar to those of children with native parents than to those of young
immigrants. The pattern holds true in many areas of integration, especially education, the
labour market, and economic well-being.
Among women in the 15-34 age group in almost every EU and OECD country for which
data were available, the native-born offspring of immigrants were less than half as likely as
young immigrants to be economically inactive in 2012-13 (Figure 1.4).
The same pattern is even more pronounced in comparisons within the broader
15-64 year-old age group of foreign-born women. Indeed, it emerges that in most countries
the inactivity rates among young native-born women of immigrant parentage are close to
those of their peers born to two native parents in most countries. In Israel, Luxembourg,
North America and Australia, they are even lower.
… but the high perceived discrimination among immigrant offspring is worrisome,
in particular in Europe
An interesting contrast emerges with respect to perceptions of discrimination in
countries for which data are available. There is improvement across the generations in all
non-EU OECD countries, whereas the reverse is the case in most of the EU countries for
which data are presented in Figure 1.5. In these latter countries, the native-born children
of immigrants are in fact more likely to feel discriminated against than their peers who
have actually immigrated. Their sentiment could have grave implications for social
cohesion.
A possible explanation for this pattern is that persons who have themselves
immigrated may have frames of reference more oriented to the origin country, while the
Figure 1.4. Inactivity rate among women by own and parents’ place of birth,
not in education, 2012-13
As a percentage of the population, persons aged 15-34
50
40
30
20
10
0
Native-born with two foreign-born parents Native-born with two native-born parents Foreign-born entered as adults
I
s
r
a
e
l
*
C
a
n
a
d
a
A
u
s
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r
a
l
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m
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r
g
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n
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t
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r
l
a
n
d
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w
e
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C
D
t
o
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l
(
1
7
)
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n
i
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e
d
K
i
n
g
d
o
m
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e
r
m
a
n
y
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n
m
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e
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h
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l
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t
o
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(
1
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)
F
r
a
n
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e
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p
a
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s
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a
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e
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g
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m
F
i
n
l
a
n
d

native-born offspring of immigrants have been socialised into host-country norms and
standards of equal treatment and are thus more aware of and sensitive to infractions of
these standards. The fact the pattern is the reverse in the settlement countries,
Luxembourg and Switzerland – where native-born offspring of immigrants claim less
frequently to be discriminated against than their peers who are born abroad – seems to
reflect the more positive outcomes of the native-born children of immigrants in these
latter countries (Heath, Liebig and Simon, 2014).
In the EU, it is generally more challenging to integrate immigrants from outside
the Union
In EU countries, differences in outcomes between third-country (non-EU) nationals
and host country nationals are generally greater than between foreign-born and native-
born (Figure 1.6 illustrates that trend in the relative poverty rate). There are a number of
reasons. First, third-country nationals are more likely to be recent arrivals, as citizenship
take-up increases with time spend in the host country. They may also face legal barriers –
to employment in the public sector in some countries, for example. Similarly, third-country
citizens may have limited access to social services (e.g. low-rent housing or benefits),
which can also impact on their outcomes. Furthermore, most third-country nationals
come from lower-income countries where educational systems do not always perform as
well as those in EU countries and deliver qualifications whose worth host country
employers may struggle to recognise.
Integration challenges do not increase with the share of immigrants in the population
Few indicators point to a link between the proportion of immigrants in the total
population and immigrant integration outcomes, as Figure 1.7 illustrates with respect to
employment and relative poverty rates.
Figure 1.5. Persons who consider themselves members of a group that is or has been
discriminated against on the grounds of ethnicity, nationality or race, 2002-12
Percentages
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Foreign-born (15-64) Native-born with 2 foreign-born parents (15-34)
N
e
t
h
e
r
l
a
n
d
s
A
u
s
t
r
i
a
F
r
a
n
c
e
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n
i
t
e
d
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n
g
d
o
m
E
U
t
o
t
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l
(
2
7
)
P
o
r
t
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g
a
l
E
s
t
o
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i
a
B
e
l
g
i
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m
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r
m
a
n
y
D
e
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m
a
r
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w
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t
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a
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L
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x
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i
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t
a
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e
s
N
e
w
Z
e
a
l
a
n
d

26
Where there is a clear link, though, is in the employment rate: countries that are home
to high proportions of immigrants also tend to have the highest immigrant employment
rates. One reason is that such countries tend to have greater shares of employment-driven
migrants, the only truly discretionary category of migration.2
In other words, labour
migrants come on top of family and humanitarian migrants, who generally have lower
labour market outcomes.
Figure 1.6. Differences in relative poverty rate by citizenship and by country of birth, 2012
Figure 1.7. Link between two indicators – employment rate and relative poverty rate –
and the proportion of immigrants in the total population, 2012-13
Percentages
50
40
30
20
10
0
Between third-country nationals and nationals Between foreign-born and native-born
L
u
x
e
m
b
o
u
r
g
B
e
l
g
i
u
m
F
i
n
l
a
n
d
D
e
n
m
a
r
k
I
c
e
l
a
n
d
F
r
a
n
c
e
N
o
r
w
a
y
S
w
e
d
e
n
G
r
e
e
c
e
S
p
a
i
n
P
o
r
t
u
g
a
l
E
U
t
o
t
a
l
(
2
5
)
G
e
r
m
a
n
y
A
u
s
t
r
i
a
I
t
a
l
y
S
w
i
t
z
e
r
l
a
n
d
U
n
i
t
e
d
K
i
n
g
d
o
m
C
z
e
c
h
R
e
p
u
b
l
i
c
I
r
e
l
a
n
d
40
30
20
10
0
40 50 60 70 80
40
30
20
10
0
10 20 30
AUT
BEL
BGR
CHE
CYP1, 2
CZE
DEU
MLT
EST
ESP
FIN
FRA
GRC
HRV
HUN
IRL
ISL
ITA
LTU
LUX
LVA
DNK
NLD
NOR
POL
PRT
ROU
SWE
SVN
SVK
TUR
GBR
AUS
CAN
CHL
ISR*
JPN
KOR
MEX
NZL
USA
AUT
CHE
CZE
DEU
EST
GBR
HUN
IRL
ISL
LTU
LUX
LVA
MLT
HRV
NOR
POL
PRT
SWE
SVN
NLD
AUS
ISR*
NZL
Share of foreign-born among total population
Employment rate of foreign-born population
Employment rate
Share of foreign-born among total population
Relative poverty rate
Relative poverty rate of foreign-born population

1.4. Classifying immigrant destination countries
The key findings outlined in Section 1.3 hold true for most OECD and EU countries. At
the same time, immigrant populations differ largely in their size, length of residence, age,
education level, language, predominant entry categories, and share coming from high-
income countries. On the basis of these background characteristics, eight groups of OECD
and EU countries can be identified (Figure 1.8).
These peer groups of countries often face similar, group-specific integration
challenges (see Table 1.3 below), which differ from those encountered by other groups of
countries. While countries can always learn from the exchange of experiences, such an
exchange will be particularly fruitful with those countries that have immigrants with
similar characteristics and integration challenges.
Group 1: Settlement countries (Australia, Canada, Israel, New Zealand)
In this group of countries, settlement has been a constituent element of nation-
building, and immigration is considered part of the national heritage. On average, one
person out of four is foreign-born, while the native-born who have at least one immigrant
parent account, on average, for another 23%.
There is a high proportion of immigrants who have been educated to tertiary level: an
average of 50% have a tertiary degree, a level well above those in other countries and higher
than among the native-born (36%). Such educational attainment is linked partly to
immigration policies that have, for many years, accepted large numbers of highly skilled
labour migrants. As a result, current per capita inflows are also well above average.
More than one-third of migrants in settlement countries are native speakers. Israel is
an exception and proportions of native speakers and recent migrants are relatively small.
Integration outcomes in settlement countries are generally regarded as successful.
Due to the high share of highly-educated people, many of whom came as labour migrants,
immigrants generally boast good labour market outcomes, access to training, and social
inclusion. The vast majority of immigrants with more than ten years of residence have
host-country citizenship. Linked with the high education levels of their immigrant parents,
immigrant offspring tend to have better outcomes both at school and in the labour market
than their peers with no migration background.
Group 2: Long-standing destinations with many recent and highly educated migrants
(Luxembourg, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States)
These countries host significant numbers of both recent and long-settled migrants.
Immigrants account for shares of the total population that range from about 12% in the
United Kingdom and the United States to 28% in Switzerland and 43% in Luxembourg.
Although immigration is longstanding, there have been many arrivals in the last ten years,
particularly in the three European countries where they make up 40%-50% of the foreign-
born population of working age. For these countries, the high share of recent immigrants
stems largely from free movement within the EU-EFTA area, driven chiefly by migration for
employment. Immigrants – particularly recent arrivals – tend to be highly educated, and at
least 35% of those of working age have a tertiary degree. The United States is an exception,
however, both because recent migration has been more limited and because the vast
majority of immigrants came from lower-income countries, mainly in Latin America.

28
Figure 1.8. Classification of OECD and EU countries as immigrant destinations according
to key foreign-born population characteristics, around 2013
Percentages
Notes and sources are to be found at the end of this chapter.
100 100 100
0
0
0
0 100 0 100
0
100
Share of
foreign-born
(among total
population)
Recent
immigrants
(< 10 years)
(15-64)
Tertiary-
educated
immigrants
(15-64)
Immigrants born
in a high-income
country
(15-64)
Native-
speakers
immigrants
(16-65)
Old
immigrants
(65+ among all
immigrants)
many
recent
and
high-educated
immigrants
longstanding
lower-educated
migrants
Low-educated
High-educated
Settlement
countries
Longstanding
destinations
Destinations
with
significant
recent
and
humanitarian
migration
New
destinations
with
many
recent
labour
immigrants
Countries
with
immigrant
population
shaped
by
border
changes
and/or
by
national
minorities
Emerging
destinations
with
small
immigrant
populations
Australia
New Zealand
Israel*
Canada
Luxembourg
Switzerland
United States
United Kingdom
Austria
Belgium
Germany
France
Netherlands
Sweden
Norway
Denmark
Finland
Spain
Italy
Portugal
Greece
Cyprus1, 2
Ireland
Iceland
Malta
Estonia
Slovenia
Latvia
Croatia
Czech Republic
Lithuania
Hungary
Slovak Republic
Poland
Chile
Korea
Japan
Bulgaria
Turkey
Romania
Mexico
EU total
OECD total
n.a.
n.a.
n.a.
n.a. n.a.
n.a.
n.a.
n.a.
n.a.
n.a.
n.a.
n.a.
n.a.
n.a.
n.a.
n.a.
n.a.
n.a.
n.a.

As in the settlement countries, immigrant labour market outcomes are positive and
broadly similar to those of the native-born. The same trend holds for the native-born
children of immigrants in comparison with their peers who have no migration background.
However, immigrants have lower home ownership rates than the native-born and live in
poorer-quality housing.
Group 3: Long-standing destinations with many settled low-educated migrants
(Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands)
Immigration to these countries was largely shaped by flows of low-educated so-called
“guest workers” during the economic boom period in the wake of World War II. They were
later followed by large inflows of family migrants, also with low levels of education.
Much of that migration went into urban areas and, indeed, although the immigrant
population is more heavily concentrated in densely populated areas than the native-born
throughout the OECD and EU, nowhere are they more so than in the countries in this group.
Here, immigrants are, on average, almost twice as likely to live in densely-populated areas
as the native-born. All the countries in this group also host significant numbers of
humanitarian migrants and their families.
Although all five countries still experience significant migration inflows, recent
arrivals account for a small share of the total immigrant population. Between 12% and 16%
of the total population is foreign-born. Due to the long-standing nature of immigration, the
share of the native-born with at least one foreign-born parent is also relatively high,
ranging from 7% in Germany to 15% in France.
Partly because of their lower levels of educational attainment and partly because a
significant share arrived for non-employment reasons, immigrants have worse labour
market outcomes than their native-born peers. Immigrants’ employment rate is, on
average, 10 percentage points lower than that of the native-born, their unemployment rate
is 6.5 points higher, and immigrant women tend to be largely over-represented among the
economically inactive.
Immigrants also face other integration issues linked to their relatively low levels of
employment and education. These include higher relative poverty rates and poorer-quality
housing than among the native-born. Moreover, due to the high share of older migrants –
mainly early “guest worker” cohorts now reaching retirement age – health issues are more
frequent among the foreign- than the native-born.
Disadvantages related to the poor educational background of many immigrant parents
have been passed on to their native-born children, whose educational outcomes lag well
behind those of their peers with no migration background. At the age of 15, the difference
is between 1 and 1.5 years of schooling. As a result, the school-to-work transition is also
more difficult for immigrant offspring, who have a much higher chance of find themselves
neither in employment, education, or training (NEET).
Group 4: Destination countries with significant recent and humanitarian migration
(Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden)
Humanitarian immigrants and their families have accounted for much of the
immigration into these Scandinavian countries. They are overrepresented at both ends of
the education spectrum. Almost half of the resident foreign-born population of working
age has arrived over the past ten years, a significant share of whom are EU-EFTA free

30
mobility migrants. The share of the foreign-born and their offspring remains smaller than
in the long-standing destination countries, but has increased sharply over the last decade.
The overwhelming majority of immigrants are non-native speakers.
Humanitarian migrants and their families tend to struggle to integrate. Indeed, they
show rather poor labour market outcomes and experience much higher levels of relative
poverty and lower-standard housing than the native-born. Immigrant offspring also have
lower education outcomes and more difficult school-to-work transitions than their peers
with no migration background – although the differences tend to be less pronounced than
in Group 3.
A high share of immigrants has taken up host-country citizenship, and more than
two-thirds of those with more than ten years of residence are nationals. Integration
policies are strong and long-standing, partly reflected in the fact that immigrants are well
integrated in the public service sector and enjoy almost the same level of access to training
as the native-born.
Group 5: New destination countries with many recent, low educated migrants
(Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain)
This group encompasses most of the southern European countries, which were
destinations for large numbers of labour migrants who came to fill low-skilled jobs in the
first half of the 2000s up to the onset of the global financial and economic crisis. That
migration is mirrored by the large share of low educated immigrants and the fact that the
migrants account for higher proportions of the less populated areas than elsewhere in the
European Union and OECD. Three-quarters of the working-age foreign-born population is
from lower-income countries and, because most immigration is somewhat recent, few
immigrants have naturalised.
The 2007-08 downturn hit all four countries hard, disproportionally affecting the
foreign-born and in particular the many third-country nationals. The reason is partly that
they were concentrated in sectors sorely affected by job losses and partly because many
migrants arrived just before or during the crisis. Before then, immigrants had a higher
employment rate than the native-born and, even now, it is still roughly the same as that of
the native-born. Since 2006-07, the unemployment rate of the foreign-born has increased
by 17 percentage points, compared with 11 points among the native-born. For the many
poorly educated migrants, employability has become a critical issue. And, while the
children of immigrants are still a rather small group, the number entering the labour
market is growing rapidly and they already show worrying outcomes.
Over-qualification is a further concern. Among highly-educated immigrants it is much
more pronounced than elsewhere – both in absolute terms and relatively to the native-
born. In 2012-13, the over-qualification rate was twice as high among the foreign- as the
native-born.
With the exception of Portugal, the relative poverty rate among immigrants is twice as
high as among the native-born, and their standards of housing are also much worse.
Group 6: New destination countries with many recent highly-educated immigrants
(Cyprus,1, 2
Iceland, Ireland, Malta)
Like Group 5, the countries in this group have seen large numbers of labour migrants
arrive in the last 10-15 years, and half of the foreign-born population have lived in their

Table 1.3. Selected integration indicators for OECD and EU countries classified
by the immigrant-destination group to which they belong
Differences between foreign-born and the native-born
(percentage points)
+: Higher than native-born ; -: Lower than native-born
% among
foreign-born
living
in the country
for 10 years
or more
Gap between native-born
with foreign-born parents
and native-born
with native-born parents
Employment
rate
(15-64)
Overqualifi-
cation rate
(15-64)
Relative
poverty
rate (15+)
Overcrowding
rate
(15+)
Share
of persons
in overall
good health
(15+)
Share
of nationals
(15+)
Mean PISA
reading
scores
(points),
15 years
NEET rate
(percentage
points),
15-34
Settlement
countries
Australia -4 +8 +8 .. .. 83 +30 0
New Zealand -1 0 +7 +8 .. .. -17 -4
Israel* +11 0 -2 -7 .. .. +22 -5
Canada -4 +7 +8 +4 +1 92 +4 -3
Longstanding
destinations
Many recent
and high-
educated
immigrants
Luxembourg +11 +4 +18 +9 +1 22 -53 +1
Switzerland -5 -2 +9 +8 +1 45 -53 +2
United States +2 +1 +14 +18 +4 60 0 -1
United Kingdom -5 +8 +10 +9 +7 66 -6 +4
Longstanding
lower-educated
immigrants
Austria -7 +9 +14 +23 -3 53 -49 +15
Belgium -11 +11 +26 +4 -1 62 -60 +18
Germany -8 +15 +5 +7 -1 61 -43 +3
France -8 +7 +18 +9 -4 62 -56 +9
Netherlands -14 +8 +15 0 +1 78 -56 +8
Destinations with
significant recent
and humanitarian
migration
Sweden -14 +19 +11 +9 +1 84 -40 +3
Norway -7 +22 +14 +15 +7 72 -31 +4
Denmark -12 +14 +18 +12 +1 50 -49 +6
Finland -6 +11 +23 +6 +20 66 -65 +17
New destinations
with many recent
labour
immigrants
Low-educated
Spain -5 +21 +21 +6 +14 34 -47 +8
Italy +3 +39 +17 +28 +17 37 -40 ..
Portugal +4 +8 +5 +11 +18 81 -31 ..
Greece -1 +32 +25 +30 +16 29 -33 ..
High-educated
Cyprus1, 2
+6 +25 +18 +5 +20 45 .. ..
Ireland 0 +11 +5 +2 +9 56 -3 ..
Iceland -1 +26 +14 +17 +10 83 -16 ..
Malta +2 0 - +8 +11 57 .. ..
Countries
with immigrant
population
shaped by border
changes
Estonia 0 +23 +11 +1 -28 38 -36 ..
Slovenia -2 0 +14 +21 -2 91 -36 ..
Latvia -3 +5 +3 -3 -25 27 - ..
Croatia -5 +3 +6 +4 -5 99 -12 ..
Czech Republic +1 +7 +14 +21 -3 75 -21 ..
Lithuania +4 +10 +6 -1 -15 92 -25 ..
Hungary +10 +3 -3 -4 +8 85 - ..
Slovak Republic +5 -5 - +2 -18 89 - ..
Poland +1 -4 +10 -11 -39 92 - ..
Emerging
destinations with
small immigrant
population
Chile +11 .. .. .. .. .. - ..
Korea +10 .. .. .. .. .. - ..
Japan -5 .. .. .. .. .. - ..
Bulgaria -3 - -9 +19 -13 68 - ..
Turkey -3 -5 .. .. .. .. - ..
Romania +4 - - - - - - ..
Mexico -7 .. .. .. .. .. -52 ..
EU total -3 +13 +13 +5 +5 59 -32 +4
OECD total +1 +7 +14 +11 +7 62 -3 +1
Notes and sources are to be found at the end of this chapter.

32
host countries for less than ten years. However, in contrast to Group 5, many recent
migrants are highly educated and, with the exception of those going to Cyprus1, 2, more
than three-quarters come from a high income country.
Although the situation of immigrants in this group is heterogeneous, overall
integration outcomes tend to be better than in Group 5. They reflect the immigrant
population’s more advantaged socio-economic background and its higher education level
in particular. However, with the exception of Malta, the highly educated experience high
incidences of over-qualification in the labour market.
Group 7: Countries with an immigrant population shaped by border changes and/or
by national minorities (Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia,
Lithuania, Poland, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia)
The group includes most new EU member countries from Central and Eastern Europe.
None have experienced much recent migration. The bulk of the foreign-born population
found themselves to be foreign-born as a result of border changes or nation-building in the
late 20th century, mainly related to the fall of the Iron Curtain. Consequently, the foreign-
born are an aging group and the share of nationals among the foreign-born tends to be
high. The overall size of the foreign-born population differs widely, ranging from 3% in the
Slovak Republic and Poland to 15% and above in Estonia, Slovenia, and Latvia.
For most indicators, the foreign-born population has outcomes that are similar to, if
not better than, those of the native-born, particularly in the labour market. However, the
fact that many immigrants are relatively old means that they tend to be less healthy than
the native-born.3
Group 8: Emerging destination countries with small immigrant populations
(Bulgaria, Chile, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Romania, Turkey)
The last group of immigrant destinations takes in OECD countries from the Americas,
Asia, and Europe. In all of them, less than 2% of the population is foreign-born. As the
result, reliable information on many integration outcomes is not available and where it is
– as for employment – there are relatively wide variations. For example, immigrants have
better labour market outcomes than the native-born in Chile, Korea, and Romania,
whereas the reverse is the case in the other countries. However, the immigration situation
is changing rapidly. The proportion of foreign-born residents has more than doubled
since 2000-1 in all countries, driven either by the offspring of former emigrants “returning
to the land of their parents” or by labour immigrants. In Japan and Korea, marriages
between nationals and foreigners have also accounted for a non-negligible share of
immigration.
In summary, whereas many integration challenges are shared across virtually all
OECD and EU countries, others mainly concern only certain groups of countries whose
immigrant populations share similar characteristics. These characteristics notably include
composition by category of entry, duration of residence and educational attainment. But
even within these peer groups of countries, there is wide divergence, with some countries
showing much better integration results in spite of similar circumstances. This suggests
that policies have a role to play. Although an analysis of such policies is beyond the scope
of this report, looking at their peers should help countries identify areas where they could
do better.

Notes, sources, and further reading
Note to Israel
* Information on data concerning Israel: http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/888932315602.
Notes to Cyprus1, 2
1. Note by Turkey:
The information in this document with reference to “Cyprus” relates to the southern
part of the Island. There is no single authority representing both Turkish and Greek Cypriot
people on the Island. Turkey recognises the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC).
Until a lasting and equitable solution is found within the context of the United Nations,
Turkey shall preserve its position concerning the “Cyprus issue”.
2. Note by all the European Union Member States of the OECD and the European Union:
The Republic of Cyprus is recognised by all members of the United Nations with the
exception of Turkey. The information in this document relates to the area under the
effective control of the Government of the Republic of Cyprus.
Notes to figures and tables
.. : not available.
– : not significant.
Figure 1.1
Data are not available for Malta, Croatia, Iceland, Mexico, Chile and Turkey. The EU
average includes data for Romania and Bulgaria although data cannot be shown individually
for sample size issues. The distinction between immigrant offspring and the offspring of the
native-born rests on people’s self defined ethnicity in the United Kingdom’s labour force
surveys. The offspring of native-born parents are termed “White” and from “England and
Wales”, “Northern Ireland” or “Scotland”. People born in the United Kingdom with one
immigrant and one native-born parent come under the heading “Mixed/multiple ethnic
group”. The children whose parents are both immigrants are included in the various
classifications of people born in the United Kingdom who report to belong to any other
ethnic group categorised as follows: “White”, “Irish”, “Gipsy or Irish Traveller”, “Any other
White”; “Asian/Asian British”, “Indian”, “Pakistani”, “Bangladeshi”, “Chinese”, “Any other
Asian”; “Black/African/Caribbean/Black British”; and “Other ethnic group”. Compared with
other countries, the number of persons with a migration background in the United Kingdom
could thus be under-estimated, especially among the native-born with mixed background. In
New Zealand’s General Social Survey it is only possible to estimate the native-born
immigrant offspring raised by people born abroad (or a mixed couple) without specifying if
one or both people were actually the biological parents. The estimate is also constrained by
sample size limitations. Korea and Japan determine who is an immigrant on the basis of
nationality, not on the basis of country of birth. The estimates for immigrant offspring is
based on its share observed from the 2012 PISA.
Data differ slightly from those presented in Figure 1.8 since data sources are different.
Figure 1.4
Data are sorted by the difference between native-born with two native-born parents
and native-born with two foreign-born parents.

34
Figure 1.5
Data on European countries refer to the sense of belonging to a group that is
discriminated against on the grounds of race, ethnicity, or nationality. Canadian data refer
to immigrants who have experienced discrimination or have been treated unfairly in the
past five years because of their ethnicity, culture, race, or colour. Data for the United States
refer to respondents in employment who feel, in one way or another, discriminated against
at work because of their race or ethnicity. Data for New Zealand refer to immigrants who
report having been treated unfairly or having had an unpleasant experience within the
prior 12 months because of their ethnicity, race, or nationality. The relative sampling error
for New Zealand is 30-49% for immigrant men, immigrants born in high-income countries,
those with an average level of education, and those who are inactive. It is 50-99% for those
aged 15-24 or 55-64, the low-educated, and the unemployed.
Sources
Population by migration background (Figure 1.1)
Labour Force Surveys for Israel (2011), France (2012), the Netherlands (2013),
Switzerland (2013) and United Kingdom (2013). Census 2011 for Australia, Luxembourg and
Spain. Population registers for Denmark (2013), Finland (2012), Norway (2013) and Sweden
(2013). Ad hoc module of European Union Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) 2008 for Cyprus1, 2
,
the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Slovak Republic and
Slovenia. Ad hoc module of European Union Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) 2008
(native-born) + European Labour Force Surveys (EU-LFS) 2013 (foreign-born) for Greece,
Ireland, Italy and Portugal. Other sources: Mikrozensus for Austria (2013) and Germany
(2012). Canadian National Household Survey (2011). US Current Population Survey (2013).
International Migration Outlook 2014 for Japan and Korea. Belgium: Banque Carrefour de la
Sécurité Sociale 2012 (native-born) + European Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) 2013 (foreign-
born). New Zealand: General Social Survey 2010 (native-born aged 15+) + Household Labour
Force Survey 2014 (foreign-born and native-born aged less than 15).
Employment rate, unemployment rate, labour force participation and inactivity rates,
share of self-employed, overqualification rate, share of temporary workers, share
of workers in low-skilled jobs, share of highly educated (Figures 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, and 1.7,
and Tables 1.2 and 1.3)
European Union Labour Force Surveys (EU-LFS) 2012-13. United States: Current
Population Survey (CPS) 2012-13. Australia, Canada and New Zealand: Labour Force
Surveys 2012-13. Israel: Labour Force Survey 2011. Chile: Encuesta de Caracterización
Socioeconómica Nacional (CASEN) 2011. Mexico: Encuesta Nacional de Ocupación y
Empleo (ENOE) 2012. Japanese Population Survey 2010. Korea: Foreign Labour Force
Survey 2012-13 and Economically Active Population Survey of Korean nationals
(EAPS) 2012-13. For “Overqualification rate”, “Share of low-skilled workers” and “Share of
highly educated”, Australian Survey of Work and Education (ASEW) 2013. For “Share of
temporary workers”, Australian Forms of Employment 2012.
PISA scores (Table 1.3)
OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012.

NEET rate (Tables 1.2 and 1.3) and inactivity rate (Figure 1.4)
Labour Force Surveys: Belgium (foreign-born population in 2012), Israel (2011), France
(2012), Greece (2012), Ireland (2012), Italy (2012), Portugal (2012), Switzerland (2013),
United Kingdom (2013), Netherlands (2013) and New Zealand (2014). Censuses in 2011:
Australia, Spain and Luxembourg. Population registers: Denmark (2013), Finland (2012),
Norway (2013) and Sweden (2013). National Household Survey (NHS) 2011: Canada. Banque
Carrefour de la Sécurité Sociale 2012 on population born in Belgium. Mikrozensus 2012:
Germany. Mikrozensus 2013: Austria. Current Population Survey 2013: United States.
Low achievers among adults (Table 1.2)
OECD Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competences (PIAAC) 2012.
Relative poverty rate and income distribution (Figures 1.3, 1.6, 1.7 and Tables 1.2
and 1.3)
European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) 2012.
United States: Current Population Survey (CPS) 2012. Australian Census on Population and
Housing 2011. Canadian National Household Survey (NHS) 2011. New Zealand Household
Economic Survey (HES) 2013. Israeli Integrated Household Survey 2011. German
Socio-Economic Panel (G-SOEP 2012 95% sample).
Share of persons living in overcrowded dwellings (Figure 1.3 and Tables 1.2 and 1.3)
European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) 2012.
United States: American Community Survey (ACS) 2012. Canadian National Household
Survey (NHS) 2011. New Zealand: Household Economic Survey (HES) 2013. Israel:
Household Expenditure Survey (HES) 2012.
Share of persons in good health (Table 1.2)
European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) 2012. Canadian
Community Health Survey (CCHS) 2011-12. US National Health Interview Survey
(NHIS) 2012.
Turnout in election (Table 1.2)
European Social Survey (ESS) 2002-12. US Current Population Survey (CPS) 2012,
supplement on voter participation. Canadian Labour Force Survey 2011, supplement.
New Zealand General Social Survey (NZGSS) 2012.
Discrimination (Figure 1.5)
European Social Surveys (pooled 2002 to 2012 data); United States: General Social
Surveys (2004-12); Canada: General Social Surveys, cycle 23 (2009); New Zealand: General
Social Survey (NZGSS 2012).
Share of foreign-born (Figures 1.7 and 1.8)
OECD Database on International Migration (2010-11). Eurostat Database on
International Migration and Asylum for non-OECD EU countries (2012-13). European Union
Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) 2012-13 for Croatia and Turkey.

36
Share of recent migrants (Figure 1.8)
European Union Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) 2012-13. American Community Survey
(ACS) 2012. Israeli Labour Force Survey 2011. OECD Database on Immigrants in OECD
Countries (DIOC) 2010-11 for other non-European countries.
Share of migrants from high-income countries and share of old migrants (Figure 1.8)
OECD Database on Immigrants in OECD Countries (DIOC) 2010-11. European Union
Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) 2012-13 for Croatia.
Share of native speakers (Figure 1.8)
OECD Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competences
(PIAAC) 2012. For countries not included in PIAAC, the estimate is based on the “language
exposure before migration” concept from the French research centre in international
economics (CEPII): Trade, Production and Bilateral Database.
Share of nationals (Table 1.3)
European Union Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) 2012-13. American Community Survey
(ACS) 2012. Australian Census on Population and Housing 2011. Canadian National
Household Survey (NHS) 2011.
Further reading
Card, D. (2004), “Is the New Immigration Really So Bad?”, Economic Journal, Vol. 115, No. 507.
Damas de Matos, A. and T. Liebig (2014), “The Qualifications of Immigrants and their Value
in the Labour Market: A Comparison of Europe and the United States”, Matching
Economic Migration with Labour Market Needs, OECD/EU Publishing, Paris, http://dx.doi.org/
10.1787/9789264216501-9-en.
Heath, A., T. Liebig and P. Simon (2013), “Discrimination against Immigrants – Measurement,
Incidence and Policy Instruments”, International Migration Outlook 2013, OECD Publishing,
Paris, http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/migr_outlook-2013-7-en.
Liebig, T. and T. Huddleston (2014), “Labour Market Integration of Immigrants and their
Children: Developing, Activating and Using Skills”, International Migration Outlook 2014,
OECD Publishing, Paris, http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/migr_outlook-2014-5-en.
Notes
1. In European countries, native-born young people with immigrant parents are occasionally referred
to as “second-generation immigrants”. The term, however, has connotations that risk
perpetuating the immigrant status in minds and suggests that they are not considered – and do
not feel – part of the host country’s society. OECD countries that have been settled by migration
also occasionally use the term, albeit with a different connotation. Canada, for example, refers to
“second-generation Canadians”, to reflect the fact that both immigrants and their offspring are
considered an integral part of society.
2. Countries that have job opportunities for labour migrants tend to attract more of them. That is,
labour migration responds to market forces.
3. In addition, there are often challenges related to the border changes and economic restructuring.
For example, in Estonia – as elsewhere in the Baltics – during the Soviet period many Russians
came as labour migrants with no perceived need for learning the Estonian language since Russian
was official language in the whole Soviet Union. They arrived to work in sectors that were hard hit
by the economic restructuring after independence.

Settling In
37
Chapter 2
Socio-demographic characteristics
of immigrant populations
The societies of countries in the OECD and European Union have been shaped by
successive waves of immigration. Their scale and makeup vary widely and many
integration outcomes are shaped by different socio-demographic factors, such as
place of residence, age, gender, etc. To interpret those outcomes, understanding
differences in immigrants’ socio-demographic characteristics across countries and
with their native-born counterparts is a prerequisite.
This chapter looks at the broad socio-demographic characteristics of immigrants and
compares them with those of the native-born population. Indicator 2.1 considers the
size of the immigrant population and the proportion living in densely populated areas.
The chapter then goes on to address gender and age (Indicator 2.2), followed by birth
rates and rates of unions with spouses or partners of the same origin (Indicator 2.3).
The rest of the publication will make constant references to this background data as
it seeks to explain some of the disparities that affect immigrants. For further
discussion of issues raised in each section, see the section entitled “Data limitations”
at the end of the chapter.

2. SOCIO-DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS OF IMMIGRANT POPULATIONS
Key findings
● In 2012, there were around 115 million immigrants (foreign-born people) in the
OECD area, and 52 million in the European Union – of which 33.5 million from non-EU
countries. Altogether, one person in ten was born abroad, though the proportion varies
widely from country to country – from more than 25% in Australia, Luxembourg, and
Switzerland to less than 2% in Bulgaria, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Poland, Romania, and
Turkey.
● The immigrant population has grown by one-third in the course of the last ten years. It
more than doubled in Chile, Finland, Korea, Ireland, Italy and Spain.
● In virtually all countries, immigrants were overrepresented in densely populated areas
in 2011-12. The overrepresentation is strongest in such longstanding European
destinations as Austria, Belgium, France, and the Netherlands, where immigrants are
more than 50% more likely to live in such areas as the native-born.
● In 2010-11, 80% of immigrants in the OECD and the European Union were of working age,
compared with 66% of the native-born. The share of young immigrants tends to be high
in countries of recent immigration where most immigrant youngsters are the offspring
of former emigrants, such as Mexico and Romania.
● Women are slightly overrepresented among the immigrant population of working age,
accounting for about 52%.
● 60% of immigrants who lived in couples in 2010 lived with a partner or spouse from the
same region of origin.
● Immigrant women were mothers at an earlier age in 2012 than their native-born
counterparts, and they had more children. The differences in birth rates tend to be most
pronounced in those European countries where the fertility rates of the native-born are
particularly low.

40
2.1. Size and share living in densely populated areas
In 2012, the OECD was home to more than 115 million foreign-born people, representing more than 9%
of the total population. The number of immigrants has grown by one-third since 2000-01, despite a slowing
in migration flows following the onset of the economic crisis in 2008. More than one-third of the foreign-
born live in the United States. In the European Union, 52 million, or 10% of the population, are immigrants
– of which 33.5 million from non-EU countries. Germany accounts for 20% of the EU immigrant population,
and the United Kingdom and France for 14% each.
With 43% of its population born abroad, Luxembourg has the highest proportion of immigrants, while
in Switzerland and Australia, one resident in four is an immigrant, and one in five in most other
settlement countries. By contrast, immigrants account for low proportions of the population in central
Europe and the OECD countries of Latin America and Asia – less than 2% of the population in Mexico,
Romania, Turkey, Bulgaria, Japan, Poland and Korea is foreign-born. In countries that have the highest
absolute numbers of immigrants (the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and France), their
share of the total population is only slightly above average – around 12 to 13%.
In OECD countries as a whole, the share of the immigrant population rose by two percentage points
between 2000-01 and 2011-12 (Figure 2.1). The increase was observed in virtually all countries, with the
exception of Israel and the Baltic countries, where the ageing of the foreign-born population has not been
offset by new entrants. Over the last ten years, Luxembourg has seen its share of immigrants as a
proportion of its total population grow by more than 9 percentage points. In Italy and in Ireland, the
immigrant population doubled in ten years, and tripled in Spain. Lastly, while immigrant populations are
still relatively small in Finland, Chile and Korea, they, too, have more than doubled over the last decade.
In 2011-12, immigrants were overrepresented in densely populated urban areas. Across the OECD, more
than three-quarters of immigrants lived in such areas, compared with 60% of native-born. With the
exception of Iceland, immigrants are overrepresented in densely populated areas everywhere (Table 2.1).
They are most strongly concentrated in the United States and in the settlement countries (Canada and Israel
in particular). Within the European Union, where the population is less likely than outside Europe to live in
such areas, immigrants are still overrepresented in them – 57% versus 38%. In the United Kingdom, the
Netherlands and France, more than two-thirds of immigrants live in densely populated areas. The fact that
immigrants are overrepresented in urban areas is a key element in explaining differences in integration
outcomes, as some problems (e.g. unemployment and inadequate housing) are more pronounced in
the cities.
Background
Definition
An immigrant is a person born abroad (i.e. foreign-born). A densely populated area is defined as a cluster
of contiguous built-up grid cells with a certain minimum population threshold (generally at least 50 000
persons) and a minimum population density (generally at least 1 500 inhabitants per square kilometer).
The geographic unit used to define the area varies between countries.
Coverage
Total population for the size of the immigrant population and people aged 15-64 years old for immigrants
living in densely-populated areas.

Figure 2.1. Foreign-born population, 2000-01 and 2011-12
Percentage of the total population
Table 2.1. Foreign-born population aged 15-64 living in densely populated areas, 2011-12
Percentage of the foreign-born population and differences with native-born in percentage points
% of total foreign-born population
Difference (+/-) with native-born
+: higher than native-born
-: lower than native-born
Australia 85.0 +21.0
Austria 54.6 +29.8
Belgium 55.7 +33.6
Canada 96.1 +17.4
Cyprus1, 2
59.7 +6.6
Czech Republic 46.0 +17.8
Denmark 51.5 +17.5
Estonia 56.7 +16.7
Finland 54.6 +22.9
France 65.8 +23.6
Germany 49.7 +15.9
Greece 54.2 +12.5
Hungary 45.4 +16.3
Iceland 16.1 -0.5
Ireland 37.0 +2.7
Israel* 95.5 +5.2
Italy 36.2 +5.0
Latvia 64.2 +24.0
Lithuania 49.0 +5.7
Luxembourg 35.3 +16.8
Netherlands 68.0 +25.4
Norway 42.2 +15.4
Poland 62.6 +27.3
Portugal 55.9 +13.8
Slovak Republic 35.6 +15.8
Slovenia 29.2 +12.2
Spain 52.4 +4.6
Sweden 55.3 +16.8
Switzerland 37.2 +15.4
United Kingdom 80.2 +25.1
United States 95.5 +12.5
EU total (26) 56.6 +17.9
OECD total (26) 75.6 +15.1
45
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42
2.2. Composition by age and gender
In 2010-11, an average of 80% of the immigrants living in OECD or EU countries were of working age
(15-64 years old), while 13% were over 64 and 6% under 15. Immigrants are overrepresented in the
working-age population (80% compared with 66% of the native-born), particularly in the 25-44 age group.
The 25-44 year-olds are an especially large age group in the countries of recent immigration, as well as in
Scandinavia and the United Kingdom, where they account for more than half of the foreign-born
population of working age. Immigrants in Japan are most concentrated in age group below most under 35,
but less numerous beyond that age. In contrast, immigrants are underrepresented in the 15-24 age group
(Figure 2.2) and among children (i.e. up to the age 15), as immigrants are more likely to have children after
they have migrated, which explains why their children are more likely to be native-born (see Indicator 2.3).
There are also fewer immigrants among the 55-64 year-olds and the over-64s.
The proportion of over-64s is higher in settlement countries and longstanding immigration destinations,
with nearly one in five being over 64 years old in France, Canada, and Australia. Yet, the countries with the
oldest immigrant populations are those of central Europe, where history (e.g. World War II and the fall of the
Iron Curtain) has shifted borders over the course of time causing the repatriation of population groups or
making people who had never crossed a border into foreign-born, as in the former Czechoslovakia or former
Yugoslavia. Similarly, in Poland, two-thirds of the foreign-born are over 64 years old.
Countries that have experienced significant recent migration also often have large proportions of
young immigrants below the age of 15, as in Ireland, Norway and Chile, where they account for 10% of the
foreign-born. In other countries, the size of young immigrant populations reflects the return migration of
the offspring of former emigrants to their parents’ country of birth. In the wake of the 2008 economic
crisis, many people who had settled abroad returned to their home country, bringing with them – as
immigrants – their children born in the country that had hosted their parents. Examples are Poland,
Romania and, especially, Mexico, where half of the foreign-born are under 15 years old (Figure 2.3).
Comparing the proportions of younger and older immigrants with those of working age makes it
possible to estimate immigrant communities’ dependency ratios – i.e. the ratio of the population not of
working age to that which is. In 50% of OECD countries, the proportion of the population not of working
age is twice as high among the native- as among the foreign-born. The overrepresentation of immigrants
in the working-age population is especially pronounced in southern Europe, notably Greece and Italy, and
in northern Europe. In central Europe, where immigrants are older (as a result of border changes) and in
Mexico, where most are children born in the United States who have returned with their parents, the
dependency ratio of the immigrant community is greater than that of the native-born population.
Across the OECD and the European Union, women represent about 52% of immigrants of working age
(Table 2.A1.1) and are overrepresented among the foreign-born in all countries except the Czech Republic,
Finland, Luxembourg, Norway, Mexico, Romania, Spain and Slovenia.
Background
Definition
This indicator shows the composition of the immigrant population by gender and age group.
Coverage
Total population.

Figure 2.2. Age composition of the 15-64 population by place of birth and region of stay, 2010-11
Percentages of foreign- and native-born populations
Figure 2.3. Population aged 0-14 years old and over 65 by place of birth, 2012
Percentages of foreign- and native-born populations
15-24
25-34
35-44
45-54
55-64
15-24
25-34
35-44
45-54
55-64
15-24
25-34
35-44
45-54
55-64
15-24
25-34
35-44
45-54
55-64
15 10 5 0 5 10 15 15 10 5 0 5 10 15
15 10 5 0 5 10 15 15 10 5 0 5 10 15
Native-born Foreign-born
Age
cohorts
Age
cohorts
Age
cohorts
Age
cohorts
Percentage of the population 15-64
Men Women Men Women
Men Women Men Women
OECD
Asia/Oceania(4)
OECD
America(4)
EU(27)
OECD(33)
50
0
10
20
30
40
64.0
(65+)
4.5 (65+)
56.4 (0-14)
Native-born 0-14 Native-born 0-14 and 65+
Foreign-born 0-14 Foreign-born 65+
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44
2.3. Endogamous partnership and fertility
Across the European Union and the OECD, 60% of cohabiting immigrants lived with a partner of the
same origin in 2010. The proportion rises to 90% among native-born couples (Figure 2.4). Immigrants are
particularly endogamous in recent immigration countries, such as Greece and Spain and in Estonia, too,
where there is a large Russian minority. The native-born, by contrast, are more likely to be living in mixed
couples in countries of longstanding immigration, where the percentage of mixed couples has grown with
the rise in the number of native-born children of immigrants, as in France, Luxembourg and Israel. In the
two latter countries, immigrants are more endogamous than the native-born. In all countries, immigrant
men are as likely as women to be living in an endogamous partnership.
In OECD countries, immigrant women had 1.98 children on average in 2012, compared with
1.64 among the native-born. Immigrant women’s total fertility rate (TFR) was 0.5 births higher on average
in the European Union than that of native-born women (Figure 2.5). Between 2008 and 2012, the highest
average TFR among immigrant women was in France, a country where the native-born TFR is already high
in itself, followed by Estonia and Belgium. The difference between the TFRs of immigrant and native-born
women is particularly wide in some European countries where native-born fertility is low, such as
Germany, Greece, Lithuania and Spain. On the other hand, the fertility rates of foreign- and native-born are
very similar in most central European countries, as well as in Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom and the
Netherlands. In Israel, like New Zealand and Australia, the fertility of immigrant women is actually lower
than that of their native-born peers.
Evidence suggests that women who decide to migrate (often for family reasons) postpone having
children until after arriving in the host country. They then have more children in the years after arrival
before adapting gradually to the fertility patterns of the host country. Controlling for such factors often
limits the differences in fertility patterns.
Immigrant mothers are on average younger than their native-born counterparts when their children
are born (Figure 2.6) – one year younger across the European Union, and four months younger in the OECD.
That age difference widens to two years in Germany and three years in countries of recent immigration. By
contrast, they have their children one year later in the Slovak Republic, the United Kingdom, and in the
settlement countries (notably New Zealand). In the United States, in France and in most of the countries of
central Europe, they give birth at the same age as native-born women.
Background
Definition
The endogamous partnership rate is the share of individuals cohabiting with a person of the same origin.The
region of origin is based on regional groupings of countries of birth or, in the case of the native-born, the parents’
country of birth. Data are not available in the United States.
The total fertility rate (TFR) is the number of births per woman in a country. It is calculated as the number of
children that would be born alive to a woman during her lifetime if she were to spend her childbearing years
bearing children in accordance with the age-specific fertility rates of a given year.TheTFR is estimated from the
number of under-fives declared by respondents in the course of household surveys, then matched with the
official TFR drawn from birth registers. The average age of the mother at birth is estimated in the same way.
Data for this indicator are not available for Switzerland, the Scandinavian countries, or New Zealand.
Coverage
For endogamous partnerships: all over-15s who report that they are cohabiting. For the fertility rate: all
women aged 15-49, the “childbearing years”.

Figure 2.4. Endogamous partnership rate in the cohabiting population aged 15 and older,
by place of birth, around 2010
Figure 2.5. Total fertility rate of foreign- and native-born women aged 15-49 years old,
births during the five years 2008-12
Number of births per woman
Figure 2.6. Average age at birth of immigrant mothers aged 15-49, births during the years 2008-12
Difference with native-born women, in years
100
0
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are younger at birth
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are older at birth

46
Data limitations
Estimating the immigrant population
Two principal criteria are used to estimate the size of immigrant population: nationality
and country of birth. These are unfortunately not sufficient to deliver precise estimates, as
foreign populations may in fact include people born in the host country. In many countries
the native-born children of foreign parents are foreigners and may obtain nationality only
later – typically at the age of majority. In other countries (e.g. Switzerland, Italy and Greece)
the principle of jus sanguinis (“law of blood”) determines nationality – so the host country
nationality can be transmitted only by parents of that nationality. Therefore, some adults
who have foreign parents – even grandparents – may still be of foreign nationality.
More problematic still from a statistical point of view is that the foreign population may
exclude, de facto, immigrants who take host-country nationality. Any international
comparison then becomes tenuous and dependent on how liberal or restrictive nationality
legislation is in different countries. What complicates matters even further is that the
proportion of naturalised persons may also be very different, depending on the origin and
duration of residence of the immigrant population. An immigrant’s attachment to his or her
nationality of origin varies according to his or her age, duration of residence, qualifications,
and country of origin.
A better solution is therefore to use the country of birth as the criterion for estimating
the size of immigrant population (as it is done through this publication) as the number of
immigrants does not depend on nationality. Nevertheless, that definition, too, has its
limitations. The country of birth considered is the country in its current boundaries. In
countries that have experienced changes in their borders (the Czech and Slovak Republics,
the Baltic countries, Poland, Slovenia and Croatia), a significant proportion of the
population may have been born in a region that was once, but is no longer, part of their
country. They are now automatically classified as foreign-born even though they have
never actually migrated internationally, only internally.
Another limitation is that the foreign-born population may include people who
acquire the nationality of the country of current residence because:
● They are the children of former expatriates (e.g. the children of French or British
colonials, or the children of military personnel posted abroad).
● They belong to ethnic groups that have links to the country of residence or were created
by changes in borders, sometimes long ago – e.g. ethnic immigrants of Hungarian
descent, or German Aussiedler.
● They were born abroad by chance in a country in which they never actually lived.
For all those reasons, the notion of “immigrant population” should ideally be confined
to people born abroad who have foreign nationality at birth. Such a view is not affected by
acquisitions of nationality or boarder changes in the country of birth. Unfortunately, few
countries have information on nationality at birth. The country of birth, then, is still the
least biased criterion for estimating the size of the immigrant population.
Densely populated areas
Immigrant populations reside for the most part in heavily populated urban areas. Yet,
it is a complex matter to accurately measure residential segregation for purposes of
international comparisons. Segregation denotes a state of separation between social or

ethnic groups. In the context of migration research, segregation is the geographic
separation between immigrants and native-born people, with immigrants living in certain
areas and the native-born in others. Several indices of residential segregation have been
developed:
● The segregation index, devised by Duncan and Duncan (1955), measures the proportion
of the group that would have to move in order to obtain perfect balanced distribution.
● Bell’s isolation index (Bell, 1954) measures the probability of a member of a group living
in the same spatial unit with a member of his or her own group.
● The concentration index measures the number of members of a group relative to the size
of the geographical area it occupies.
● The aggregation index, developed by White (1983), compares the average relative
proximity of the members of two different groups.
● The centralisation index measures the proportions of groups living in city centres
(Duncan and Duncan, 1955).
All these indices require local data that need to be precise, consistent and
internationally comparable. The best comparable data available relate to densely
populated areas, i.e. the share of immigrant communities living in such areas. Even here,
however, data are not flawlessly comparable from one country to another, as the degree of
density varies according to the size of the area on which it is calculated. The smaller it is,
the more accurate the calculation will be. Concentration in European countries is
calculated over areas of one square kilometre (the Eurostat definition). In the United States
and in Israel, such zones generally correspond to the boundaries of the municipality or the
metropolitan area in question, which renders results less precise.
Endogamous partnership and fertility
National statistics on marriage and fertility are generally derived from official
marriage and birth records. Administrative data of this kind are rarely available to the
public. Moreover, partners’ or mothers’ country of birth are not always recorded. Data from
household surveys have therefore been used to estimate the endogamy and fertility
indicators.
Endogamy
Calculating the endogamous partnership rate requires knowledge of both partners’
and mothers’ countries of origin, but for reasons of sample size – the sole exceptions being
Australia and Canada –countries are grouped into regions of the world.
European countries are grouped into the following regions: own country, EU15,
ten new member countries of 2004, two new member countries of 2007, other Europe,
North Africa, other Africa, Near and Middle East, East Asia, South and South-East Asia,
North America, Central America and Caribbean, South America, Australia and Oceania.
For Israel, regions are: Israel, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Morocco, other Northern Africa, other
Near and Middle East countries, Scandinavian countries, Western Mediterranean countries,
other central and western Europe, Russia, former USSR Asian Republics, other former USSR,
eastern European countries, other Asian countries, Ethiopia, other African countries,
South Africa-Zimbabwe-Australia-New Zealand, United States and Canada, Central America,
South America.

48
The rate by region of origin is higher than the rate by country of origin, as two partners
born in two different countries, but from the same region, will be deemed to be
endogamous. Australia does not record the countries of origin of the parents of immigrant
offspring, so the endogamous union rate is underestimated.
Fertility
Estimating fertility retrospectively from surveys, as this chapter does, is also an
imperfect method. The main drawback of surveys is that, by definition, only people present
in the country are counted: all those – mothers and children – who died or left between the
time of birth and the time of the survey, are unaccounted for. The attendant risk is that
fertility is underestimated and the former tends to affect migrants disproportionately.
Moreover, most countries do not record information on family ties, so there is no way of
knowing whether the child is really living with its mother or, in the presence of several
women of childbearing age, who the mother of the child is. In such cases, the woman
closest to the maximum childbearing age is considered the mother. The estimated total
fertility rate has been matched on the official total fertility rate.
Notes, sources, and further reading
Note to Israel
* Information on data concerning Israel: http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/888932315602.
Notes to Cyprus1, 2
1. Note by Turkey:
The information in this document with reference to “Cyprus” relates to the southern
part of the Island. There is no single authority representing both Turkish and Greek Cypriot
people on the Island. Turkey recognises the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC).
Until a lasting and equitable solution is found within the context of the United Nations,
Turkey shall preserve its position concerning the “Cyprus issue”.
2. Note by all the European Union Member States of the OECD and the European Union:
The Republic of Cyprus is recognised by all members of the United Nations with the
exception of Turkey. The information in this document relates to the area under the
effective control of the Government of the Republic of Cyprus.
Notes to figures and tables
Figure 2.1: Lithuanian data are from 2002.
Table 2.1: The Eurostat definition of densely populated area (numbers of inhabitants
per km2
) is used for European countries.The Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS)
uses the notion of Significant Urban Areas. Canada uses data from the Census Metropolitan
Areas and Census Agglomerations. Israel and the United States use municipalities of more
than 50 000 inhabitants as yardsticks of densely populated areas.
Australia and Canada are not included in the OECD average.
Figure 2.2: Weighted average for OECD countries excluding Korea and EU countries
excluding Croatia.
Figure 2.4: Data on the native-born include only those with at least one native-born
parent in Australia and in Canada. No data is available for Australia on the country of birth of
immigrant parents of children born in Australia.

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEVEN AGES
OF MAN ***

THE SEVEN AGES OF MAN
Books by
Ralph
Bergengren
The Perfect
Gentleman
The
Comforts of
Home
Each $1.00
—
For
Younger
Readers
Jane, Joseph
and John
Boxed, $3.00
The
SEVEN AGES of MAN
BY
RALPH BERGENGREN

The Atlantic Monthly Press
Boston
Copyright, 1921, by
Ralph Bergengren

CONTENTS
I.Baby, Baby 1
II.To be a Boy 17
III.On Meeting the Beloved 33
IV.This is a Father 47
V.On Being a Landlord 64
VI.Old Flies and Old Men 78
VII.The Olde, Olde, Very Olde Man94

I
BABY, BABY
In meeting a baby, one should behave as much as possible like a baby
one’s self. We cannot, of course, diminish our size, or exchange our
customary garments for baby-clothes; neither can we arrive in a
perambulator, and be conveyed in the arms, either of a parent or a
nursemaid, into the presence of the baby whom we are to meet. The best we
can do is to hang, as it were on the hatrack, our preconceived ideas of what
manner of behavior entertains a baby, as cooing, grimacing, tickling, and
the like, and model our deportment on the dignified but friendly reticence
that one baby evinces in meeting another.—Baby: his Friends and Foes.
OF the many questions that Mr. Boswell, at one time and another, asked
his friend, Dr. Johnson, I can hardly recall another more searching than one
that he himself describes as whimsical.
“I know not how so whimsical a thought came into my head,” says
Boswell, “but I asked, ‘If, sir, you were shut up in a castle, and a new-born
child with you, what would you do?’
“Johnson: Why, sir, I should not much like my company.
“Boswell: But would you take the trouble of rearing it?
“He seemed, as may be supposed, unwilling to pursue the subject: but,
upon my persevering in my question, replied, ‘Why, yes, sir, I would; but I
must have all conveniences. If I had no garden, I would make a shed on the
roof, and take it there for fresh air. I should feed it, and wash it much, and
with warm water, to please it, not with cold water, to give it pain.’
“Boswell: But, sir, does not heat relax?
“Johnson: Sir, you are not to imagine the water is to be very hot. I
would not coddle the child.”
It appears, too, that the Doctor had given some thought to the subject,
although never expecting to be a mother himself: his immediate insistence
upon fresh air promises well for the infant, and the frequency with which he

proposes to wash his little companion indicates that, so long as the water-
supply of the castle lasted, he would have done his part. A cow in the castle
seems to have been taken for granted; but, in 1769, even Dr. Johnson would
have known little or nothing about formulas, nor would it have occurred to
him to make a pasteurizing apparatus, as so many parents do nowadays, out
of a large tin pail and a pie-plate. Here the baby would have had to take his
eighteenth-century chance. And I wish, too, that he might have had a copy
of “The Baby’s Physical Culture Guide,” that modern compendium of
twenty-four exercises, by which a reasonably strongarmed mother may
strengthen and develop the infant’s tiny muscles; for I like to think of Dr.
Johnson exercising his innocent companion in his shed on the roof. “Sir,”
he says, “I do not much like my employment; but here we are, and we’ll
have to make the best of it.”
Such an experience, no doubt, would have been good for Dr. Johnson,
and good for the baby (if it survived). “That into which his little mind is to
develop,” says “The Baby’s Physical Culture Guide,” “is plastic—like a
wax record, ready to retain such impressions as are made upon it”; and on
this wax some, at least, of the impressions left by Dr. Johnson must have
been valuable. But on the real mystery of babyhood—the insoluble enigma
that the “Guide” can only in small measure dispose of by comparing the
rearing of an infant with the home-manufacture of a record for the
gramaphone—the experience would have thrown no light.
The Doctor, I dare say, would have written a paper on the feeding and
washing of infants, and later dictionaries of familiar quotation might
perhaps have been enriched by the phrase,“‘The baby is grandfather to the
man.’—Johnson.” But of this grandfather the man has no memory. His
babyhood is a past concerning which he is perforce silent, a time when it is
only by the report of others that he knows he was living. His little mind
seems to have been more than a little blank; and although gifted novelists
have set themselves the imaginative task of thinking and writing like
babies, none, in my reading, has ever plausibly succeeded. The best they
can do is to think and write like little adults. I recall, for example, the
honest effort of Miss May Sinclair, whom I greatly respect as an adult, to
see Mr. Olivier through the eyes of his baby daughter Mary. “Papa sat up,
broad and tall above the table, all by himself. He was dressed in black. One
long brown beard hung down in front of him and one short beard covered
his mouth. You knew he was smiling because his cheeks swelled high up in

his face, so that his eyes were squeezed into narrow, shining slits. When
they came out again, you saw scarlet specks and smears in their corners.” A
fearsome Papa!—and, although I have no way of knowing that fathers do
not present themselves in this futurist aspect to their helpless offspring, I am
glad to think otherwise. At all events a baby is, and must be, well used to
living in Brobdingnag.
It would be a surprising thing, if it were not so common, that a man
shows so little curiosity about this forgotten period of his life. But such
curiosity would be impossible to satisfy. Existing photographs of him at that
time are a disappointment: he seldom admits seeing any resemblance, and,
if he does, the likeness rarely, if ever, gives him any visible satisfaction. Nor
can anything of real and personal interest be found out by interviewing
those who then knew him. Of a hundred, nay, of a thousand or a million
babies,—and though I cannot speak as a woman, it seems to me (except,
perhaps, for a livelier interest and pleasure among them in their infant
appearance) that everything I am saying applies equally to babies of that
fascinating sex,—the trivial details observed by those who are nearest them
are practically identical. They thump their heads. They chew their fingers.
They try to feed their toes; and, sillier yet, they try to feed them with things
that are obviously inedible. And so forth. And so forth. If Dr. Johnson,
actually shut up in a castle, and a new-born child with him, had kept a
record, the result would have been very much like the records that mothers
now keep in what, unless I am mistaken, are called “Baby Books.” If
you’ve seen one Baby Book, as the cynical old man said about circuses,
you’ve seen all of ‘em.
Nor does any man take pleasure in preserving and reading over his own
Baby Book. Hercules, to be sure, might have been interested to read in his
mother’s handwriting,--“Tuesday. An eventful day. Two big, horrid Snakes
came in from the garden, and got in Darling’s cradle, frightening Nurse into
hysterics; but Darling only cooed and strangled them both with his dear,
strong little hands. He gets stronger and cunninger every day. When the
horrid Snakes were taken away from him, he cried and said, ‘Atta! Atta!’”
But Hercules was an exceptionally interesting baby; and the average
Baby Book records nothing that a grown man can regard with pride, and
much, if he has any sensitiveness at all, that must make him blush. Nothing
but respect for his mother, it is almost safe to say, would withhold him from

hurrying the incriminating document to the cellar, and cremating it in the
furnace.
For in the beginning Captain William Kidd, George Washington, Dr.
Johnson, the writer of this essay, and even the editor of the “Atlantic
Monthly,” looked and behaved very much alike. And so, for that matter, did
little Moll Cutpurse and little Susan B. Anthony. So far as anybody could
then have said, Captain Kidd might have become a thoughtful, law-abiding
essayist, and I a pirate, handicapped, indeed, by changed conditions of
maritime traffic, but unconscientiously doing my wicked best.
As the twig is bent, says the proverb, so is the tree inclined; but these
little twigs are bent already, and I humbly submit, with all respect to my
scientific friends, and their white mice and their guinea pigs, that where and
how it happened remains an insoluble mystery. Little as I know about
myself, I know that I am neither a white mouse nor a guinea pig. And this,
mark you, is no mere conceit. Scientists themselves have decided that when
babies, in that remote past when they first began really to interest their
parents, and the human mother, the most pathetic figure of that primitive
world, first began the personal and affectionate observation that was to
develop slowly, over millions of years, until it found expression in the first
Baby Book—scientists, themselves, I say, have decided that, then and there,
you and I, intelligent reader, began to differ essentially from every other
known kind of mammal. There appeared—oh, wonder!—something
psychical as well as physical about us; but where it came from, they cannot
tell us. “Natural selection,” so John Fiske once summed up this opinion,
“began to follow a new path and make psychical changes instead of
physical changes.” Little enough there seems to have been to start with;
little enough, indeed, there seems to be now—yet enough more to
encourage us to believe that Baby is a lot further along in the right direction
than he was a good many million years ago. And with this helpful
conviction, Baby himself, whether he will grow up to write essays or
commit picturesque murder, seems reasonably well satisfied. We solemn
adults, standing around the crib, may well admire, not so much the pinkness
and chubbiness of his toes, as the pinkness and chubbiness (if I may so
express it) of his simple satisfaction with the mere fact of existence, his
simple faith in the Universe. And when we think how impossible it is to
think of its beginning, we, too, may capture something of this infantile
optimism.

It is by no means impossible (though not susceptible of scientific proof)
that Baby may have a life of his own; and, if we may assume Hercules
weeping and saying, “Atta! Atta!”—because shrewd observers of babyhood
declare it to be characteristic of babies to say, “Atta! Atta!” when something
desirable, in this case two dead snakes, is removed from their range of
vision,—may we not assume also a universal language of babies, and a
place, such as it may be, from which they have emigrated? Here, indeed,
one follows M. Maeterlinck, except that, in his judgment, unborn babies
speak French. Such a theory is no help to the novelist, for in that case baby
Mary Olivier’s impressions of Mr. Olivier must be rendered in baby—a
language equally unknown to Miss Sinclair and to her readers. Babies have
been heard to say, for example, “Nja njan dada atta mama papaï attaï na-na-
na hatta meenĕ-meenĕ-meenĕ mŏmm mŏmma ao-u”—and who but another
baby knows whether this may not be speech? The assumption that this is an
effort to speak the language of the baby’s elders is academic, as, for that
matter, is the assumption that they are his elders. There may even be no
baby at all; for, as Schopenhauer has almost brusquely put it, “The
uneasiness that keeps the never-resting clock of metaphysics in motion, is
the consciousness that the non-existence of this world is just as possible as
its existence.” But this, I confess, is far too deep for me.
Baby, baby in your cot,
Are you there?—or are you not?
If you’re not, then what of me!
Baby, what and where are we?
For all practical purposes, however, Baby is sufficiently real—
substantial enough, indeed, as “The Baby’s Physical Culture Guide” shows
in Exercise 24, to be lifted by his little feet and stood on his little head; but,
mercifully adds the “Guide,” “do not hold Baby on his head very long.” For
all practical purposes we must, and do, assume our own existence. “Here
we are,” as I have imagined Dr. Johnson saying to his innocent new-born
comrade, “and we’ll have to make the best of it.” Nobody has thought of a
better way, or any other way at all, for us to get here; and the familiar
Biblical phrase, ‘born again,’ may perhaps be more literal than we are wont
to imagine, and apply to this world as well as the next. Baby himself may
just have been born again. That innocent-seeming and rather silly-sounding

monologue, which we flatter ourselves is an earnest attempt to imitate our
own speech,—“Nja njan dada atta mama papaï attaï na-na-na hatta meenĕ-
meenĕ-meeneĕ mŏmm mŏmma ao-u,”—may it not be the soliloquy of a
gentle philosopher, or, again, the confession of an out-and-out rascal,
talking to himself of his misdeeds, chuckling and cooing over them, indeed,
before he forgets them in this new state of being? May not Papa, waggishly
shaking his forefinger and saying, “You little rascal, you,” be speaking with
a truthfulness which, if known, would make him sick?
Meanwhile, as says “The Baby’s Physical Culture Guide,” “Don’t jerk
Baby round. Never rush through his exercises, but talk to him in a happy,
encouraging way. When he is able to talk he will be glad to tell you what
great, good fun he has been having.”
So speaks, I think, a mother’s imagination; in sober reality, even the
great good fun of Exercise 24 will be forgotten. Which is perhaps why,
although I have heard men wish they could again be children, I have never
heard any man say he would like to be a baby.

II
TO BE A BOY
I love dearly to watch the boys at their play. How gayly they pitch and
catch their baseball with their strong little hands! How blithely they run
from base to base! How merrily their voices come to me across the green;
for, although I cannot hear what they say, I know it expresses a young,
innocent joy in this big, good world. Yet even in this Garden there is a
Serpent, and one day two of the little innocents quarreled and came to
blows. A real fight! I soon hurried out and stopped that, but the sight of
their little faces distorted with rage, and one poor boy bleeding at the nose,
upset me for quite a time.—An Old Maid’s Window.
IN “The Boyhood of Great Men,” published by Harper and Brothers, in
1853, but now, I fear, very little read, it is told of Sir Isaac Newton that “An
accident first fired him to strive for distinction in the school-room. The boy
who was immediately above him in the class, after treating him with a
tyranny hard to bear, was cruel enough to kick him in the stomach, with a
severity that caused great pain. Newton resolved to have his revenge, but of
such a kind as was natural to his reasoning mind, even at that immature age.
He determined to excel his oppressor in their studies and lessons; and,
setting himself to the task with zeal and diligence, he never halted in his
course till he had found his way to the top of the class; thus exhibiting and
leaving a noble example to others of his years similarly situated. Doubtless,
after this, he would heartily forgive his crestfallen persecutor, who could
not but henceforth feel ashamed of his unmanly conduct, while Newton
would feel the proud consciousness of having done his duty after the
bravest and noblest fashion which it is in the power of man to adopt.”
We cannot all be Sir Isaac Newtons, and, although I may wish for a
passing moment that some sturdy little school-fellow had kicked me too in
the stomach, the resulting sequence of events would probably have been
different, and the world would have gained little or nothing by my natural
indignation. Having an impartial mind, I should like to know also why Sir
Isaac was kicked in the stomach, and what became afterward of the boy

who kicked him. As his fame grew in the world, the reflected glory of
having thus kicked Sir Isaac Newton in the stomach would presumably
have brightened in proportion, but, lacking other distinction, the kicker
served his evolutionary purpose and has now vanished.
But this much remains of him—that his little foot kicks also in the
stomach the widely accepted fallacy that boyhood is an age of unalloyed
gold, to which every man now and then looks back and vainly yearns to be
a boy again. “Oh! happy years!”—so sighed the poet Byron,—“once more,
who would not be a boy?” And so to-day, as one may at least deduce from
his general newspaper reading, sigh all the editors of all the newspapers in
the United States. Not, indeed, for a boyhood like Sir Isaac Newton’s, but
for the standard American boyhood, to which, in theory, every ageing
American looks back with tender reminiscence—that happy time when he
went barefooted, played “hookey” from school, fished in the running brook
with a bent pin for a hook, and swam, with other future bankers, merchants,
clerks, clergymen, physicians and surgeons, confidence-men, pickpockets,
authors, actors, burglars, etc., etc., in an old swimming-hole. The
democracy of the old swimming-hole is, in fact, the democracy of the
United States, naked and unashamed; and even in the midst of a wave of
crime (one might almost imagine), if the victim should say suddenly to the
hold-up man,—
“Oh, do you remember the ole swimmin’ hole,
And the hours we spent there together;
Where the oak and the chestnut o’ershadowed the
bowl,
And tempered the hot summer weather?
Ah, sweet were those hours together we spent
In innocent laughter and joy!
How little we knew at the time what it meant
To be just a boy—just a boy!”
—the hold-up man would drop his automatic gun, and the two would
dissolve on each other’s necks in a flood of sympathetic tears.
It is a pleasant and harmless fallacy, and I for one would not destroy it; I
am no such stickler for exactitude that I would take away from any man

whatever pleasure he may derive from thinking that he was once a barefoot
boy, even if circumstances were against him and his mother as adamant in
her refusal to let him go barefooted. But the fallacy is indestructible: the
symbols may not have been universal, but it is true enough of boyhood that
time then seems to be without limit; and this comfortable, unthinking sense
of immortality is what men have lost and would fain recover. One forgets
how cruelly slow moved the hands of the school-room clock through the
last, long, lingering, eternal fifteen minutes of the daily life-sentence. One
forgets how feverishly the seconds chased each other, faster than human
feet could follow, when one’s little self was late for school, and the clamor
of the distant bell ended in a solemn, ominous silence. Then was the
opportunity for stout heart to play “hookey,” and to lure the finny tribe with
a poor worm impaled on a bent pin; and that, in the opinion of all the
editors of all the newspapers in the United States, is what all of us always
did. But in the painful reality most of us, I think, tried to overtake those
feverish seconds, seeking indeed to outrun time, and somehow or other,
though the bell had stopped ringing, get unostentatiously into our little seats
before it stopped. And so we ran, and ran, and ran, lifting one leaden foot
after the other with hopeless determination, in a silent, nightmare world
where the road was made of glue and the very trees along the way turned
their leaves to watch us drag slowly by. Little respect we would have had
then for the poet Byron and his “Ah! happy years! once more, who would
not be a boy?”
But even when time seemed to stand still, or go too fast, we had no
consciousness that the complicated clock of our individual existence could
ever run down and stop; and so happily careless were we of this treasure,
that we often wished to be men! “When I was young,” says the author of
“The Boy’s Week-Day Book,”—another volume that is not read nowadays
as much as it used to be,—
I doubted not the time would come,
When grown to man’s estate,
That I would be a noble ‘squire,
And live among the great.
It was a proud, aspiring thought,
That should have been exiled:—

I wish I was more humble now
Than when I was a child.
I wonder what proud, aspiring thought Uncle Jones, as he called himself,
just then had in mind; but it was evidently no wish to be a boy again:
perhaps he meditated matrimony.
For my own part I cannot successfully wish to be a boy; I remain
impervious to all the efforts of all the editors of all the newspapers in the
United States to dim my eye; and there must be many another eye like
mine, or else it is unbelievably unique. I lean back in my chair, close my
undimmed eye, and do my best; but, contrary to all editorial expectation, I
can summon no desire to go barefooted, fish with a bent pin, or revisit the
old swimming-hole
Where the elm and the chestnut o’ershadowed the bowl,
And tempered the hot summer weather.
I prefer a beach and a bathing-suit and somebody my own age. Yet do not
think, shocked reader, that I am unsympathetic with youth. I am more
sympathetic—that is all—with my contemporaries; and the thought forces
itself upon me that boyhood is a narrow and conventional period, in which
my own desire to go without shoes was exactly similar to my mother’s
determination to wear a bustle. Equally anxious to follow the fashion of our
respective sets, neither understood the other; and I would no more have
worn a bustle than my mother would have gone barefooted. My father,
similarly thwarted in a single desire, would have cared less: his wider
interests—politics, business, family, the local and world gossip that
immersed him in his newspaper, art, literature, music, and the drama, to say
nothing of professional baseball and pugilism (in which, however, many
fathers and sons have a common interest)—would have absorbed his
disappointment.
But my narrower world, so to speak, was all feet. An unconventional
boy, as I think the most erudite student of boy-life and boy-psychology will
admit, is much more rare than an unconventional man; and even then his
unconventionality is likely to be imposed upon him “for his own good” by
well-meaning but tyrannical parents. “I have known boys,” wrote Uncle
Jones, observing but not comprehending this characteristic fact, “when
playing at ‘Hare and hounds’ and ‘Follow my leader,’ to scramble over

hedges, leap over brooks, and mount up precipices, in a manner which they
would not have dared to attempt, had it not been for the examples set them
by their school-fellows; but,” he adds, “I do not remember any instance of a
boy imitating another on account of his good temper, patience, forbearance,
principle, or piety.”
Naturally not. You and I, Uncle Jones, might be expected to imitate each
other’s good temper, patience, forbearance, principle, or piety,—though I do
not say that we would,—but from the point of view of a boy these virtues
are unconventional. Their practice shocks and disconcerts the observer. The
behavior of Sir Isaac Newton, when kicked in the stomach, was perfectly
scandalous.
And what is there, after all, in the life of a boy, that a man would find
interesting? Or that he may not do, if such is sufficiently his desire to
“make” the time for it, as he makes time for his adult pleasures, and if he is
not too old or too fat? He can spend his vacation at the old swimming-hole
—but he never does it. He can go barefooted whenever he wishes: his
mother can no longer prevent him. He can fish with a bent pin in the
porcelain bathtub,—adding a goldfish to make the pursuit more exciting,—
every morning before he takes his bath. He can chase butterflies; here and
there, indeed, a man makes a profession of it, and institutions of learning
call him an entomologist, and pay him much honor and a small salary.
Nobody forbids him to enlarge his mental horizon by reading the lives of
criminals and detectives; and I can myself direct him to many an
entertaining book, which is at once far worse and far better, morally and
artistically, than the sober narratives that Old Sleuth used to write by the
yard for boys to read by stealth. He can roll a hoop; in many cases it would
do him a world of good to roll it down to the office in the morning and back
home at night. If he can persuade other ageing men, wishful of renewed
boyhood, to join with him, he can play at marbles, tick, puss-in-the-corner,
hop-scotch, ring-taw, and “Hot beans ready buttered.” (Uncle Jones
mentions these games. I do not remember all of them myself, but “Hot
beans ready buttered” sounds especially interesting.) And where better than
in some green, quiet corner at the Country Club? And why, if you will raise
the question of conventionality, why more foolish than golf, or folk-
dancing?
But what he cannot do is to assume the boy’s unconsciousness of his
own mortality. What he cannot unload is his own consciousness of

responsibility to and for others. Life, in short, has provided the man with a
worrying company of creditors of whom the boy knows nothing—Creditor
Cost-of-Living, Creditor Ambition, Creditor Conscience, and Creditor
Death. And the boy is unmarried! It is even claimed by one philosopher of
my acquaintance that this is why men wish they were once more boys. I
grant the plausibility of this opinion; for the more a man is is devoted to his
wife and family, the more he is beset and worried by these troublesome
creditors, the more, one may reasonably argue, he feels the need of time to
meet his obligations, and is likely now and then to envy the boy his narrow,
conventional, but immortal-feeling life.
Uncle Jones misses, I think, this fundamental fact. He is always trying to
destroy the boy’s sense of immortality in this world by trying to persuade
him to read the Bible and prepare for immortality in the next. “When a boy
first begins his A B C,” says Uncle Jones, “it is terrible work for him for a
short time; yet how soon he gets over it, and begins to read! And, then, what
a pleasure to be able to read a good and pleasant book! Oh, it is worthwhile
to go through the trouble of learning to read fifty times over, to obtain the
advantage of reading the Bible.”

III
ON MEETING THE BELOVED
Now it is a quainte Oddity of thys State and Mysterie of Loue that youre
trew Louer combines the opposyte qualities of a deepe Humilitie and a
loftie Conceit of Hymselfe. For with respect to this, hys Mistresse, he
believes himself a most inferior Person, and as it were a mere Worme; yet if
he doth suspect her to regard any Man els as his Equal, he is consumed
with great Astonishment and raging Indignation, for this same Loue is a
great Destroyer of Common Sense in its Victimes. For he thinketh Hymselfe
inferior to her because he is her Louer, and superior to all Men els for the
same silly Reason.—Anatomie of Loue.
TO any sensitive man, not yet armored by the indifference that comes of
being married himself, there is cause for apprehension in the prospect of
meeting for the first time that person, male or female, whom somebody he
knows and loves has recently agreed to marry. The event, when it comes, is
unavoidable, nor is there any period in adult life when it may not happen, or
anybody we know so old that he or she may not occasion it. Fact is more
romantic, or at any rate remains romantic much later in life, than fiction.
Only the other day I read in the newspaper of a man of one hundred and
thirty-five years who had just subjected his little circle to this formality.
Very likely the newspaper exaggerated, but the case undermines the security
that one ordinarily feels in his relationship with the ageing.
Now it needs no argument that to be happy in the happiness of others is
an inexpensive pleasure and well worth cultivating. Other things being
equal, one should go dancing and singing to his first meeting with another’s
beloved. Bright-colored flowers, be she sixteen or sixty, should blossom, to
his imagination, from the granite curb along his way; and, though a foolish
convention may repress the song and dance, yet should he walk as if shod
with the most levitating heels ever made from the liveliest of live rubber,
and sing merrily in his heart.

But, thus to enter into the happiness of another, one must see and feel, as
if for himself, some good and sufficient reason for that happiness; and the
deep, insoluble mystery essential to all proper betrothals is that this good
and sufficient reason is not necessarily visible: these two are happy-mad,
and how shall anybody who is sane enter into their lunacy?
Mr. Harvey Todd, 2d,—to take the first name that comes to mind,—has
become engaged to Miss Margaret Lemon; Miss Lemon to Mr. Todd. Well
and good. Nature, which, for some reason that mankind has long curiously
and vainly sought to penetrate, wishes to continue the human race, is, one
may believe, reasonably well satisfied. It is one job among many. But the
satisfaction of Mr. Todd and Miss Lemon, if it could be put to such
haberdashery use, would girdle the Equator, and the ends, tied in a true
lover’s knot, would flutter beyond the farthest visible star. Men and women
have become engaged in the past; men and women will become engaged in
the future; but this engagement of Harvey Todd and Margaret Lemon is and
will ever remain unique—and so whoever is now called upon to appraise
one party to this wonder and congratulate the other, may well be troubled.
He is not so much afraid of what he may do and say,—for any man may
hope to achieve a hard, quick, almost sobbing pressure of the hand and a
few muttered words,—as of the way, in spite of himself, that he will look
when he does and says it; there, indeed, the amateur actor profits by his
hobby. There is, to be sure, the saving chance that Miss Lemon (or Mr.
Todd) may so pleasurably affect him that the ordeal will be less difficult
than he anticipates: there is even the rare chance that he may instantly and
completely agree with Mr. Todd’s estimate of Miss Lemon; but this is the
happy-madness itself, and certainly not desirable under the circumstances.
There is the possibility, even more rare and less desirable, that Miss Lemon,
seeing him for the first time, will instantly and completely prefer him to Mr.
Todd. There is the possibility that he may recoil with horror from Miss
Lemon (or Mr. Todd), or be recoiled from, or that both may recoil
simultaneously, falling over, figuratively, on their backs, and being picked
up and carried away unconscious, and in opposite directions, by surprised
onlookers. His whole nature may, in short, instinctively run toward, or away
from, the beloved; and between these extremes lies a gamut of intermediary
emotions, which at the moment he would hardly wish to uncover. This stiff
and geometrical smile, he asks himself at the worst, can it deceive
anybody? this hypocritical mutter of congratulation, does it proceed from

his own or an ice chest? Nor is he much relieved when Mr. Todd or Miss
Lemon, as the case may be, proves how genuine appeared his smile, how
sincere his mutter, by asking him in affectionate detail what he thinks of the
other—a procedure which should be legally forbidden the newly engaged,
under penalty of being refused a marriage license for at least ten years.
This state of mind in lovers, so important to those who are called upon to
meet the beloved for the first time, has engaged the attention of essayists,
conversationalists, and philosophers. “They fall at once,” wrote Stevenson,
“into that state in which another person becomes to us the very gist and
centre point of God’s creation, and demolishes our laborious theories with a
smile; in which our ideas are so bound up with the one master-thought, that
even the trivial cares of our own person become so many acts of devotion,
and the love of life itself is translated into a wish to remain in the same
world with so precious and desirable a fellow creature. And all the while
their acquaintances look on in stupor.”
“No, sir,” said Dr. Johnson, promptly improving Mr. Boswell’s milder
assertion that love is like being enlivened with champagne, “No, sir.
Admiration and love are like being intoxicated with champagne”—an
opinion, one hopes, that will not some day be made the basis of a nation-
wide campaign to prohibit falling in love.
“His friends,” said Ralph Waldo Emerson, “find in her a likeness to her
mother, or her sisters, or to persons not of her blood. The lover sees no
resemblance except to summer evenings and diamond mornings, to
rainbows and the song of birds.”
Mr. Todd and Miss Lemon (so like a rainbow) are impervious to any lack
of enthusiasm that you or I, dear, unselfish, sensitive reader, may fear to
exhibit when either leads us the other by the hand and says, “This is IT.”
Ours, if any, will be the suffering. It may even happen that Miss Lemon or
Mr. Todd—Mr. Todd or Miss Lemon beaming consent and approval—will
suggest that we call her (or him) Margaret (or Harvey).
Yet from another point of view, but this is a selfish one, apprehension is
justified in proportion to the sensitive man’s previous intimacy with the
individual whose beloved he is about to meet. For until that meeting is over,
“previous” is the word for it: whatever opinion the beloved may form of
him will determine the degree and manner of its continuance. If Miss
Lemon disapproves of him, though Mr. Todd has hitherto loved him as

Damon did Pythias, all is over; if Mr. Todd disapproves of him, though he
has known Miss Lemon from her perambulator, all is over. A pale ghost, he
may, in either case, sometimes hang his spectral hat in the Todd hallway,
and even extend his phantom legs under the Todd mahogany; but ALL IS
OVER. Divinely harmonious as they seem, these two will never agree to let
him try, however humbly and conscientiously, to cultivate the inexpensive
pleasure of being happy in their happiness. He becomes what no self-
respecting man can wish to be—a fly in the ointment. Most cases,
fortunately, are not so serious: he will be given a reasonable chance to make
a place for himself on this new plane to which Mr. Todd and Miss Lemon
have been translated; but it is always a question whether he can enter that
plane himself, or must hereafter be content with hearing from his former
friend through a medium. For he has not, as is so often gracefully but
emptily said on these trying occasions, been enriched by the acquisition of a
new friend: he has simply exchanged Miss Lemon or Mr. Todd (as the case
may be) for a composite, a Toddlemon or a Lemontodd—a few years will
show which. He must make the best he can of that composite. He who was
formerly described as (let us say) “my friend, Mr. Popp,” becomes, if he
becomes at all, “our friend, Mr. Popp”; and if ever he hears himself being
introduced as “Mr. Todd’s friend, Mr. Popp,” or as “Mrs. Todd’s friend, Mr.
Popp,” he had better go away as soon as politeness permits, and never come
back. Never.
I speak, of course, in generalities; for there are no rules immutably
governing all cases, and life is mellowed and beautified by shining, sensible
examples, in which Mr. Todd and Miss Lemon become one, yet realize that
in many respects, being human, they must still remain two; then, indeed, the
congratulator may actually be enriched by the acquisition of a new friend—
but not instantly, as one is enriched by the acquisition of a new hat. Yet it is
always the wiser part, in preparing to meet a beloved, to prepare for the
worst.
These are evidently the apprehensions of a bachelor, sensitive but not
unselfish; the mental attitude is different with a student, philosopher, and
idealist who, thinking not of himself, contemplates another’s marriage in
the calm, intelligent way, having as yet no beloved in which he can
contemplate his own. Such a one weighs. Such a one is conscious that, little
as he knows the beloved of Mr. Todd or Miss Lemon, there is grave danger
that Mr. Todd knows Miss Lemon, or Miss Lemon Mr. Todd, hardly better.

This happy-madness may not only be a delusion, as a calm outside
intelligence contemplates it, but it may be a snare. Mistakes do happen.
There are known cases in which the happy lunatic has been mistaken in a
beloved not once but often; and the persistent effort of these poor madmen
and madwomen to correct one mistake by making another is one of the
most discussed and pitiable phases of our civilization. The calm intelligence
must balance also the practical aspects of the business, its risks and
liabilities as well as its profits; and so serious is the enterprise when thus
examined that he can hardly fail to be terrified for anybody he knows and
loves who is undertaking it.
O Harvey! Harvey! (or Margaret! Margaret!)
Tact is what he will pray for. And if his prayer is granted, when Mr. Todd
(or Miss Lemon) asks him, “Now, honestly, what do you think of her (or
him)?” he will say, “Of course I do not know Miss Lemon (or Mr. Todd)
very well yet, but I have never met anybody whom I hoped to know and
like better.” Which will be quite true, and please the twittering questioner
much more than if he said, “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know.”

IV
THIS IS A FATHER
Proud Parent, in this little life
Yourself reflected see,
And think how Baby will progress
A man like you to be!
So stout, so strong, so wise, and when
Sufficient years have flown,
Like you the happy parent of
A baby of his own!
And when that unborn baby grows
To be a man like you,
Oh, think how proud that man will be
To be a parent too.
So think, when life oppresses you
And you are feeling sad,
A million, million, million times
You’ll be a happy dad.
—The Father’s Anthem.
IN the life of man fatherhood is so likely to happen, that I wonder
Shakespeare did not select father as a natural, and indeed inevitable,
successor to lover in his well-known seven ages. He chose the soldier, “full
of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,” presumably because such
soldiers were common in Elizabethan London. But fathers must have been
more so: they must have gone in droves past the tavern window where
Shakespeare (as what we now call the “wets” so like to think) sat at his ale-
stained table, dipping now his quill in an inkwell, and again his nose in a

tankard; but they seem to have made no impression. Indeed this unromantic,
necessary figure, composite as it is of all sorts and conditions of men, has
never appealed strongly to the poets; perhaps it is their revenge because
fathers so seldom read poetry.
Whatever else a man does, whether he lives by banking or burglary,
ascends to the presidency or descends to the gutter, he is likely to be a
father: they are as countless as the pebbles on a beach or the leaves in
Vallombrosa, and the few who evade paternity evade also the purpose for
which nature evidently created them, and go through life thumbing their
noses, so to speak, at Divine Providence. So taken for granted is this
vocation of fatherhood, and so little considered in comparison with other
masculine employments, that no correspondence school offers a course, and
many a young man undertakes to raise children with less hesitation than he
would start in to raise chickens. Some accept fatherhood with joy, others
with resignation, like a recently wedded young Italian who cobbles my
shoes, and spoke the other day of his own new little one. “Zee fadder and
zee modder,” he said, “zey work and zey slave for zee leetle one. But what-
a good? When he is grow up, he say, ‘To hell wiz zee fadder and zee
modder!’” And so, as Shakespeare may have decided, there is no universal
type of fatherhood, nor has the imagination of mankind created one, as in
the case of mothers, for convenient literary and conversational use. The
lines of the balladist,—
With his baby on his knee
He’s as happy as can be,—
were, to be sure, something in this direction; but they have become so
wholly associated with humor, that even the late Mr. Rogers, had he known
the ballad, could hardly have found inspiration therein for a group; nor
Shakespeare adapted the lines to describe seriously one of his seven ages.
He might have scribbled experimentally,—
Then the father,
Infant on knee, and happy like the clam,—
but that would have been the end of it. He would have crossed out the
experiment, and taken another drink.

Father, in fact, follows Mother, in the mind of the general, so far behind
that he is almost invisible, a tiny object on red wheels at the end of a string.
But the little fellow carries a pocketbook: when Mother needs money she
pulls in the string, and he comes up in a hurry. And, as is usually the case
with popular conceptions, this odd, erroneous notion, which most fathers
seem cheerfully enough to accept, has no doubt its historic foundation, and
derives from the unquestionable supremacy of Mother in the beginning. At
that period, indeed, it is hardly to be expected that any father should feel
immediately en rapport with his new-born child, or become intimately
associated with its helpless, flower-like life. Ever since the idea, which has
now so long lost its original element of bewildering surprise, yet remains
always somewhat surprising, first dawned upon a human father and mother
that this baby belonged to them, conditions have inexorably consigned the
infant to the care of its mother, while its father pursued elsewhere the
equally necessary business of providing sustenance for the family. A
division of labor was imperative: somebody must stay at home in the cave
and tend the baby, somebody must go out in the woods and hustle for
provisions. Maternity was, as it must have been, already a feminine habit,
but paternity was something new and unexpected; and although I suspect, in
many cases, this astonishing discovery was followed by speedy flight.
Trueheart the First took up his responsibilities and his stone axe together.
The horror is recorded with which Dr. Johnson regarded the idea of
being left alone in a castle with a new-born child; and this feeling in so
civilized a man was no doubt an echo of the emotion with which poor,
bewildered, primitive, but faithful Trueheart would have envisaged being
left alone in the cave with his new-born baby: the sense of relief, of gayety,
of something definite and within his capabilities to do, with which the
young father nowadays takes his hat and starts for the office, must be much
the same as that with which Trueheart took his stone axe and started for the
woods.
Thus, in the very inception of the human family, fatherhood became
subordinate to motherhood; and so, because conditions after all have not
fundamentally changed, it has ever since continued. “Mothers’ Day,” for
example, is celebrated with enthusiasm; “Fathers’ Day” remains a mere
humorous suggestion, a kind of clown in the editorial circus. Then as now,
moreover, in the earlier life of the child, Father, although not quite as
useless as a vermiform appendix, was and is of very little importance.

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