Higher educational level and worse quality of life: this is how immigrants are in OECD countries

The immigrants who reside in countries of the OECD they have higher educational levels than ten years ago, but their living conditions are still worse than those of the natives, the organization reports in a report published this Thursday.

Immigration in OECD countries has increased by 20% in the last decade and, according to data from the organization, its members welcome 141 million people born abroad, of whom 54 million reside in Union countries European.

In general, the conditions of migrants have improved in the last ten years, especially in the labor market, an advance that responds, in part, to better integration policies, more favorable working conditions and a higher educational level of recent immigrants. arrived, explains the report.

Despite these good data, a third of immigrants in Europe still do not have studies beyond primary education, almost twice as many as their native neighbours, and they face greater difficulties in finding jobs for which they are qualified.

“Compared to their national peers, immigrants with higher education degrees are less likely to work with their peers in all countries and are more likely to be overqualified for their jobs almost everywhere.” warns the OECD report, although it highlights that when the titles come from national institutions, the differences are reduced by 75%.

This context is especially pronounced in Spain, as explained by the migration specialist for the OECD and author of the report, Thomas Liebig: in this country, although immigrants have a higher level of education than 10 years ago, they continue to live with low wages and high levels of poverty.

“It is not because immigrants are not working, it is because in Spain the salaries of immigrants are the lowest in the OECD”, denounces the expert.

The difference with the salaries of Spaniards can be seen in the average annual household income: immigrant families from non-EU countries have an average income of 12,442 euros per year, compared to the 20,194 received by families of nationals.

For Liebig, the most worrying data appears among the children of immigrants, who present a higher level of relative poverty (39.87%) than their native peers (17.62%), the largest difference in the OECD.

“Half of the young people living in poverty these days in Spain are the children of migrants, despite the fact that they are a relatively small part of the child population”says Liebig.

Despite the difficulties, these young people are improving their educational levels across the OECD, as indicated by the results of the PISA tests, and have higher employment rates than in the previous decade, although they tend to obtain temporary contracts and reduced hours.

Portugal, Ireland, Latvia and Spain are four of the countries in which the unemployment rate for immigrants has fallen the most in recent years, although in the latter it continues to be quite high for young children of immigrants, Liebig points out, with 42% of them unemployed.

Socialization and discrimination

The report celebrates that, in general, public opinion among natives about the immigrant population has improved, although their contributions to society and the increase in their educational levels are not perceived.

Even with this, the perception of discrimination among immigrants is increasing in a general way, an indicator that rose especially in the countries of the EU, New Zealand and Canada.

In this sense, Liebig highlights that Spain is the country in which socialization is highest: 64% of children under 15 years of age interact with foreigners at least once a day, compared to 40% on average in the EU.

This does not reduce the perception of discrimination which, although not very high (13% compared to 14.7% on the European average), Liebig considers it “amazing”.

“This does not mean that Spain discriminates more than Germany, for example, but that there is a high awareness of this problem, it is an indicator of social cohesion”clarifies.

“We do not know if they are being discriminated against more or not, but we do know that they do not feel treated fairly”he concludes.

Source: EFE