The youngest are mostly from Africa, the oldest from Europe.
Among the people living in ordinary housing in metropolitan France, 5.8 million are immigrants, i.e. 9% of the population.
According to the second edition of the Trajectories and Origins survey, conducted jointly in 2019-2020 by INSEE and INED, measuring origins over three generations, the diversity of unions and the level of education progress over the generations.
Even if social inequalities persist.
Read alsoThe shock report on the Kafkaesque management of immigration in France
Their profile reflects, with a lag, the successive flows of immigration: nearly half of these immigrant populations were born in Africa and a third in Europe.
The share of Europeans is on the decline, while that of people from sub-Saharan Africa and Asia is increasing.
Some 7.5 million individuals are descendants of second generation immigrants (12% of the population), that is to say born in France with at least one of their immigrant parents.
Among people under 60, 4.7 million are descendants of third-generation immigrants (10% of those under 60), i.e. born in France, of non-immigrant parents, and with at least least one of their immigrant grandparents.
Better diplomas than their parents
A link to immigration that fades over generations, because the diversity of origins also results, according to the study, from an increasing mix of unions:
"if 27% of immigrants are in a couple with a spouse without ancestry direct immigration, this is the case for 66% of second-generation descendants,
say the experts.
In the third generation, nine out of ten grandchildren of immigrants under the age of 60 have only one or two immigrant grandparents”.
Does the level of education progress as much in families with an immigrant background as in the others?
The Trajectories and Origins survey has, for the first time, measured its progression in the level of education over three generations.
“72% of the descendants of two immigrant parents obtain a higher diploma than that of their parents,
affirms the study.
This is more than for the children of mixed couples with only one immigrant parent (55%) or the descendants of natives (57%).
However, these children of two immigrant parents, starting from a lower educational capital, remain less often graduates of higher education than the descendants of natives”.
But to what professions do these diplomas lead?
Higher education graduates born to one or two parents of non-European origin are much less likely to enter intermediate or higher professions: 63% for those from North Africa, 67% for those from Asia and 71% for those from from the rest of Africa.
Part of the explanation for these differences according to origin, says the INSEE and INED survey,
“is due to regularly measured discrimination in hiring”.
Discrimination
This is also the subject of a third part of the study: in ten years, the feeling of discrimination increases, carried by women and the sexist motive, indicates the report.
To the question “During the last five years, do you think you have been subjected to unequal treatment or discrimination?”
19% of the population aged 18 to 49 answered “often” or “sometimes”.
In 2008-2009, this proportion was only 14%.
A more marked increase for women than for men: in 2019-2020, they are 21% to declare having suffered discrimination, against 14% ten years earlier.
The sexist ground has become the main cause of discrimination, overtaking those related to origin, nationality or skin color.