Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development,

Titel

Skills and Labour Market Integration of Immigrants and their Children in Flanders

Auflage

1st ed

Ort / Verlag

Paris : OECD Publishing,

Erscheinungsjahr

2023

Link zum Volltext

• OECD iLibrary

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Intro -- Foreword -- OECD field mission to four Flemish cities in the spring of 2022 -- Antwerp: The highly diverse population centre -- Mechelen: A medium-sized city renowned for its model of living together -- Tienen: A rapidly diversifying city -- Heusden-Zolder: A medium-sized municipality with longstanding migrant presence -- Acknowledgements -- Table of contents -- Executive summary -- 1 Assessment and recommendations for immigrant integration in Flanders -- The population of immigrants and their offspring in Flanders is rapidly growing and diversifying -- Large inflows of asylum seekers and refugees bring challenges… -- …and although the Flemish labour market is better positioned to tackle these challenges than in the past, outcomes remain unfavourable in international comparison -- A significant share of immigrants has low levels of education or was trained abroad… -- …which brings challenges in a labour market that places strong emphasis on formal credentials -- The current policy for new arrivals is centred around a comprehensive civic integration programme, with language training as the main element of support -- Despite high participation, language training for adult newcomers has not produced strong results in the past -- Language proficiency is of critical importance in the Flemish labour market and society -- The employment return of higher language levels differs across migrant groups -- Few immigrants have employment once the civic integration programme ends -- Recent reforms have addressed several shortcomings of the civic integration programme -- At the same time, important challenges remain and need to be addressed.
• Civic integration trajectories remain mostly sequential, protracting the time migrants spent outside of the labour market, and a stronger involvement of the PES at early stages would help in addressing this shortcoming -- Responsibilities for integration are shared by many actors, highlighting the need for more effective co-operation and co-ordination in integration efforts -- The data infrastructure is highly developed -- Difficult access to housing complicates newcomers' integration pathways -- Flanders' emphasis on rapid labour market integration can create a conflict with the goal of sustainable employment -- The public employment service offers various activation measures to support jobseekers' employment entry, but immigrants and their children benefit less from the measures that work best -- Participation in vocational language training should be further expanded -- Given the low education levels of many new arrivals, adult education needs to be more central to integration efforts -- Further improvements in the recognition process of foreign qualifications are needed -- Validation of professional qualifications is a promising pathway, but needs to be expanded and better targeted at migrants -- Bridging offers need to be streamlined and scaled up -- Migrant women are struggling to integrate, and many remain locked in inactivity, pointing to the need for second chance offers -- Family policies should be made more accessible for migrant mothers -- Wage subsidies form an important element in Flanders' approach to tackle demand-side barriers to employment, but immigrants are underrepresented -- The service voucher scheme gradually became an important employer of migrant women, but traps many highly qualified migrant women in subsidised domestic work.
• Self-employment can offer immigrants a way out of labour market exclusion, but low survival rates point to the need for more guidance and counselling -- Mentorship is relatively well-developed, and stronger targeting would improve its effectiveness -- Discrimination is an important obstacle to labour market integration, and Flanders aims to tackle it more effectively through sector-specific actions -- Equal employment policy measures have become less targeted and the effect of this should be closely monitored -- The population of youth with migrant parents is becoming increasingly important in the Flemish education system and labour market… -- …and overall, children of immigrants fare poorly in Flanders, highlighting the persistent nature of integration challenges -- Gaps in educational performance already manifest themselves at an early age, despite high participation in Early Childhood Education and Care -- Flanders employs an inclusive approach to enhance the educational chances of pupils with migrant parents, yet outcomes still leave much to be desired… -- Youth born abroad face difficulties transitioning from reception education -- The employment gap between immigrant and native-born offspring is among the widest in the OECD, regardless of level of education -- The large public sector plays an important role-model function, but immigrants and their offspring remain strongly underrepresented -- A comprehensive action plan on integration should be considered -- 2 The context of integration policy in Flanders -- Characteristics of immigrants -- The immigrant population is rapidly increasing and diversifying -- The share of the immigrant population with (very) low levels of education is high -- Labour market integration of immigrants -- Despite improvement, non-EU immigrants' employment outcomes remain poor in international comparison.
• High inactivity among foreign-born women merits particular attention -- The success of integration is highly correlated with the purpose for migration -- Many non-EU immigrants never search for work in Flanders, and those who do take longer to find work than elsewhere -- The return to education plays out differently for immigrants and the native-born -- Besides lower employment, immigrants have less favourable job characteristics -- The lack of Dutch language skills is the main obstacle to getting a suitable job -- Immigrants are overrepresented in atypical work -- Development of integration policy -- From a selective and voluntary reception policy towards a general and obligatory civic integration programme -- Further changes centralised and professionalised integration policies -- The emphasis increasingly shifted towards civic integration and language learning as a means for integration -- Recent reforms have made civic integration much more demanding -- Key actors in integration policy -- Many actors are involved in shaping integration policy at all levels -- Social partners are highly involved in integration policy -- Flanders has an active approach consulting civil society and immigrant organisations -- Flanders is taking action to reappraise the role of the local governments in the integration process -- References -- Notes -- 3 Integration of new arrivals in Flanders -- The civic integration programme -- Scope and target group of the integration programme -- The programme is offered to all new arrivals but obligatory for those considered most in need of integration support -- Registration rates have declined for new arrivals entitled to participate -- Integration participants have very different integration needs -- Content of the integration programme -- The programme is multifaceted and tailored to individual needs.
• Dutch language training is a critical component of integration training -- Civic orientation as the second pillar of the integration programme -- Recent reforms have made integration training more demanding -- Newcomers are obliged to register with the PES to foster economic self-reliance -- The programme will be extended with an innovative participation and network trajectory -- Effectiveness of the integration programme -- Inter-Agency co-ordination still leaves a lot to be desired -- Some migrant groups experience more difficulties to participate in the various civic integration stages -- Civic integration trajectories remain mostly sequential, with little parallel training -- The focus on formal language learning implies protracted integration trajectories for slow learners -- Civic integration trajectories differ considerably across local contexts -- Despite high participation rates, language training has not produced strong results… -- …a challenge which the revised Integration Act aims to tackle -- Few immigrants have employment once the civic integration programme ends -- Settlement patterns -- Immigrants are concentrated in and around the Flemish centre cities -- Within cities, immigrants are overrepresented in disadvantaged neighbourhoods -- The accessibility of housing steers immigrants towards poorer neighbourhoods -- Even when immigrants leave concentrated neighbourhoods, they often remain trapped in lower-quality housing -- Increasing asylum inflows have led to an accommodation crisis… -- …and policy gaps interrupt the housing pathways of refugees -- Social assistance -- Social assistance is the only social protection scheme to which newly arrived migrants can have rapid access -- Non-EU nationals have considerably higher rates of receipt and longer periods of receipt compared to EU and Belgian nationals.
• Immigrants "integrate out of" social assistance, yet receipt continues to be high many years after immigration.
• Flanders experienced large inflows of immigrants over the past decade, coming from an increasingly diverse range of countries, with growth rates outpacing the Netherlands, France and Germany, as well as Belgium as a whole. While integration outcomes have improved in recent years, some of the core indicators remain unfavourable in international comparison, especially for non-EU immigrant women, refugees, and youth with migrant parents. Against this backdrop, Flanders has developed a comprehensive integration policy. This review, the fourth in the series Working Together for Integration, provides an in-depth analysis of the Flemish integration system, highlighting its strengths, weaknesses, and potential areas for improvement. Earlier reviews in this series looked at integration in Sweden (2016), Finland (2018) and Norway (2022).
• Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.