Ethnic Boundaries in Educational Attainment and Labour Market Participation in France, Germany and Italy

The chapter examines the impact of institutional complementarity between education and labor market insertion, in relation specifically to immigrant populations in Italy, France and Germany. The goal is to grasp the differences in educational attainment and labour market outcomes between natives and non-natives within countries characterized by different migratory models, educational systems, labour markets and degree of impact of the economic crisis. The article takes into account the main points that have been made both in theoretical literature and through empirical verification, such as the key role played by family and education in social and economic achievement during the individual’s life–course, the problematic transition from school to work, and the risks of discrimination and social marginality. The findings presented in this chapter confirm that employment regimes are not neutral with respect to the ethnic variable, and that this disadvantage is common in both old–immigration and new–immigration countries. Segmentation is two–fold, found in both education and labour market integration. Although there is a common trend involving the relative penalization of non-natives, the Italian system appears to be sufficiently universalistic at the level of basic education.