The economist writes:
In America, the education levels, English-language skills and intermarriage rates of immigrant groups rise over time. So do income, home-ownership and political representation. This is the natural course of assimilation. But it does not seem to work in Europe. Some European countries (including France) do not collect ethnic-based statistics, so hard evidence is tricky to come by. But most indicators of second- and third-generation assimilation in Europe are disquieting. There are few North African or Turkish representatives in French or German politics. Most young men arrested after the French riots have been sons or grandsons of immigrants from the 1950s or 1960s. The murderer of Theo van Gogh, a Dutch film-maker, was described by the chairman of a parliamentary commission as “an average second-generation immigrant”. Europe, it seems, has done less than America to assimilate the children and grandchildren of newcomers. Why?
Among others, one of the most prominent reasons are,
The work advantage
Work is the archetypal social activity. It provides friends and contacts beyond your family or ethnic group. If you start your own company, it pulls you further into the society around you. And here is a striking difference between Europe and America. Unemployment in France is almost 10%. Among immigrants or the children of immigrants, it is at least twice and sometimes four times as high. In contrast, unemployment among legal immigrants in America is negligible, and business ownership is off the scale compared with Europe.
The second big motor of integration is home-ownership, especially important in the second and third generations. This gives people a stake in society, something they can lose. Thanks to cheap mortgages and an advanced banking system, half of Latinos in America own their own homes. Britain, after its council-house sales and property booms, also encourages house ownership. In contrast, most of the blocks in the French banlieues are publicly owned.
Between them, a job and a house help to create not only more integration but also greater social mobility. Latinos supported America’s turn towards assimilation because they feared the trap of Spanish-language ghettos. But the banlieues are full of people who have grown up without jobs, or any hope of getting a better income or a better place to live. For them, integration is a deceit, not a promise.
A job and a house will not solve everything. The father of one of the July 7th London bombers owned two shops, two houses and a Mercedes. But if you want to know why second- and third-generation immigrants integrate more in some countries than others, jobs and houses are a good place to start.
Again, economy matters, and the european economic model is not only bad for economic growth, but especially bad for minorities.
What an incredibly wide blanket statement. “Europe” is a rather large place with half a billion people, yet someone thinks all of the immigrant experience in the EU can be summarized in a paragraph? Having just come from London, and having stayed in Brent, a predominantly immigrant neighborhood, I was amazed by the general melting pot flavor of the area. Minority owned businesses of every type flourished there, and one only has to look at the website of the local council in, say, neighboring Hounslow to see the investment foreigners have made in the community: about 50% of the councillors are of Indian descent! All in all, despite problems, race relations are still better in much of Europe than in the US.
The article talks about France, Britain, the Netherlands, and Germany, but I guess your trip to London is enough to disprove the article, right?
Btw, it may seem to you that race relations are better in Europe, but the much larger unemployment numbers in Europe say otherwise.
While economics may play a role, I would argue that it is not as large a role as culture. The United States has a history of first religious and then ethnic diversity. Our Country was founded on diversity. Federalism was less about the importance of local politics than it was about self-rule and cooperation of essentially divergent sectarian states. However in Europe you have countries that have deep homogenous cultural histories. The French are French, Germans are German, and there haven’t been immigrants to those countries until recently in their history. It makes much more sense then that immigrants have a harder time assimilating into homogeneous cultures.
Scandanavia countries have incredibly successful social welfare programs that work primarily becasue they do not have the divsive issue of ethnic diversity to contend with. And it is telling that my friend in Helsinki is noticing for the first time overt classism and class differentiation between the vast majority of the Fins and the very small north African immigrant communit that has only recently been allowed to immigrate there. Culture plays a much larger role, and eprhaps your point would be best qualified to note thet the success of certain economic policies is a function of ethnic diversity.
I live in Britain as I have lived in the United States….
I find that Britain has a much more mixed population, ie you have jamaican, indian, pakistani, spanish, polish, english, irish, peruvian, nigerian, kenyan etc all on one street, where as when I was in America it was much more segregated, ie they have neibourhoods that are neally all one race…
I find in Britain there is a much more positive view towards immigrants which I believe comes through integration.
I feel the States needs to adopt a British and European approch towards immigration in order to solve its racist issues.
In favour of the USA I cannot explain why after all this ethnic mixing in Britain, there are hardly any minorities in Parliment - every other area of british society - entertainment, local government, business etc is bulging with diversity - but parliment isnt.
I agree with most of what you say, but Britian is certainly not what I think of when I think of a European economy.
While Britain is part of Europe, its economic model is closer to the United States economic model than it is to those of say France or Germany, two countries that are more representative of what makes the European economic model different than the US.
In other words, we are both kinda saying the same thing, we need to move more towards a market based economy, and less towards a state based economy. With Britain and the United States both representing the more market based economic model, and France and Germany representing the more state based economic model.
Europe rocks!!
Denmark is the best country, EVER!!:D