Eurostat (European Commission) published its migrant integration statistics for 2020, measuring migrant integration in the European Union in terms of employment, education, social inclusion and active citizenship.

As emphasised in the new pact on migration and asylum, successful integration and inclusion is essential for a migration and asylum policy to be effective. In acknowledgement of this, the recently-announced action plan on integration and inclusion 2021-2027, which forms part of the new pact, focuses on migrant integration challenges. This report supports the successful implementation of policy responses to these challenges, through the provision of insights extending beyond the basic demographic characteristics of migrants, including a wide range of socioeconomic information.

This 156-page report includes the following key statistics:

Migration and migrant population

• 2.4 million migrants entered the EU-27 from non-member countries in 2018, while 1.4 million people previously residing in an EU Member State migrated to another Member State;
• Germany reported the largest number of immigrants (893.9 000) in 2018, followed by Spain (643.7 000), France (386.9 000) and Italy (332.3 000);
• 4.9 % of the 446.8 million people living in the EU-27 on 1 January 2019 were non-EU citizens. 

Employment

• In 2019, the employment rate in the EU-27 for working-age citizens of other EU Member States was 75.5 %, while for non-EU citizens it stood at 60 % (13.8 points below the average for national citizens);
• The unemployment rate in the EU-27 for working-age national citizens was 6.1 % in 2019, while the rates for non-nationals were higher: 7.9 % for working-age citizens of other EU Member States and 14.7 % for non-EU citizens;
• The highest regional unemployment rates for citizens of other EU Member States in 2019 were recorded in Greece, Spain, Italy and France; the highest regional unemployment rates for non-EU citizens were recorded in France, Sweden, Greece and Spain.

Education

• In the EU-27, the share of working-age non-EU citizens who had at most a lower secondary level of educational attainment in 2019 was more than twice as high as the share among national citizens;
• For the EU-27, in 2019 nearly one-tenth (8.9 %) of young national citizens were early leavers from education and training, while for young non-nationals the share was more than twice as high: 22.5 % for young citizens of other EU Member States and 26.9 % for young non-EU citizens;
• In 2019, just over 1 in 10 national citizens in the EU-27 aged 15-29 years was neither in employment nor in education or training (NEETs), whereas higher shares were recorded among non-nationals, in particular for those who were non-EU citizens (24.2 %).

Social inclusion

• In 2018, 20.7 % of all national citizens living in the EU-27 faced a risk of poverty and social exclusion. The share for citizens of other EU Member States was higher (29.1 %), and even higher for migrants who were non-EU citizens (45.1 %);
• Around one in six (16.8 %) children whose parents were national citizens were at risk of poverty in the EU-27 in 2018, while this share was more than twice as high for children who had at least one parent who was a foreign citizen (39.3 %);
• Across the EU-27, some 12.9 % of non-EU citizens faced severe material deprivation in 2018, compared with 6.6 % of citizens of other EU Member States and 5.7 % of national citizens.

Active citizenship

• In the EU-27, the naturalisation rate for people who were formerly non-EU citizens was 2.7 % in 2018: almost four times as high as the rate recorded for people who were formerly citizens of other EU Member States (0.7 %);
• At the end of 2018, people with long-term residency rights accounted for 53.3 % of all non-EU citizens living in the EU-27.

Source: Eurostat, Migrant integration statistics, 2020 edition.

Find the full report attached below.