S9 Ep28: Immigration and integration in Europe

About this episode

The episode discusses immigrant integration in Europe based on a decade of research data.

More than one in eight people living in the EU today was born in another country. In fourteen of the bloc's largest economies, it is closer to one in six. For ten years, the same team of researchers has asked what happens to those people next: do they find work, close the gap with their native-born neighbours, and build a settled life? The tenth Migration Observatory report is about to be published, and the decade-long picture it paints is not what the political debate might lead you to expect. Tommaso Frattini of the University of Milan, one of the report's editors, joins Tim Phillips to examine what a decade of consistent, comparable data actually reveals about immigrant integration across Europe. Who are Europe's immigrants, and has that changed? Is the employment gap between migrants and natives closing, stable, or widening? And does it matter whether a migrant arrives from inside the EU or out? The politics of migration is often poisonous, but the data tells a different story. The research behind this episode Frattini, Tommaso, and Anissa Bouchlaghem. 2026. "Immigrant Integration in Europe." Migration Observatory Annual Report , 10th edition. Collegio Carlo Alberto / LdA /…

People in this episode

Host: Tim Phillips

Guest: Tommaso Frattini

Topics covered

• immigration
• integration
• Europe
• employment gap
• data analysis

Keywords

• immigration
• integration
• Europe
• employment gap
• migrants
• data
• politics

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: University of Milan, Migration Observatory, Collegio Carlo Alberto, LdA, CEPR Press

Books & works: Immigrant Integration in Europe

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