Comparison of the Living Conditions of the Immigrant Population in Major European Countries

Abstract

Specific aspects and territorial characteristics of migration have been extensively studied, while the primary living conditions of foreigners have been less compared in-depth. Using data from the Labor Force Surveys and EU-Silc for the year 2019, relating to six key aspects of daily life, in this study, foreign-born people living in the five main European countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom) and the European Union were compared for the frequency of costs (e.g., for welfare services) and benefits (e.g., for employment) for the host society. Subsequently, the comparison of them, made by juxtaposing natives and non-natives, allowed for a definition of the level of primary integration (distance of immigrants from natives on the same aspects). The results show that the degree of congruence between the frequency of costs and that of benefits in the immigrant population is strongly influenced by the economic situation, favorable for Germany and the United Kingdom in 2019, with a lower recurrence of hardship cases among immigrants, but high wealth did not automatically reduce their differences. Instead, a small gap between immigrants and natives may also be due to the progressive impoverishment of the latter (Italian case). Therefore, especially in periods of economic stagnation, the different impact of it and of welfare measures on the immigrant population compared to natives requires the analysis of their actual living conditions, as the traditionally used economic aggregates (especially GDP) do not reveal the disparities in the distribution of resources between the various social and ethnic groups.