S9 Ep28: Immigration and integration in Europe

More than one in eight people living in the EU today was born in another country. In fourteen of the bloc's largest economies, it is closer to one in six. For ten years, the same team of researchers has asked what happens to those people next: do they find work, close the gap with their native-born neighbours, and build a settled life? The tenth Migration Observatory report is about to be published, and the decade-long picture it paints is not what the political debate might lead you to expect.

Tommaso Frattini of the University of Milan, one of the report's editors, joins Tim Phillips to examine what a decade of consistent, comparable data actually reveals about immigrant integration across Europe. Who are Europe's immigrants, and has that changed? Is the employment gap between migrants and natives closing, stable, or widening? And does it matter whether a migrant arrives from inside the EU or out? The politics of migration is often poisonous, but the data tells a different story.

The research behind this episode

Frattini, Tommaso, and Anissa Bouchlaghem. 2026. "Immigrant Integration in Europe." Migration Observatory Annual Report, 10th edition. Collegio Carlo Alberto / LdA / CEPR Press. Free download from CEPR Press, forthcoming on 18 May.

To cite this episode

Phillips, Tim, and Tommaso Frattini. 2026. "Immigration and integration in Europe." VoxTalks Economics (podcast).

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About the guest

Tommaso Frattini is Professor of Economics at the University of Milan and a member of the CEPR Research Policy Network on the Political Economy of Migration. His research spans labour markets, immigration economics, and the long-run integration of migrant populations in Europe. He is one of the founding editors of the Migration Observatory Annual Report series, now in its tenth year, and a co-author of the Collegio Carlo Alberto / LdA reports that underpin this episode.

Research cited in this episode

European Union Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS). Eurostat, collected annually by national statistical offices and harmonised across EU member states. The EU-LFS is the primary source for the Migration Observatory's comparative analysis of employment outcomes across countries and over time. The figures cited in this episode are drawn from the 2024 edition, the most recent available at the time of publication.

The employment gap. A measure of labour market integration defined as the percentage-point difference in the probability of being employed between migrants and native-born residents of the same country. A gap of zero would indicate full employment parity. The Migration Observatory computes the gap both raw and adjusted for observable characteristics such as age, education, and gender; the adjusted figure isolates the portion of the gap that cannot be explained by differences in workforce composition between the two groups.

Migration Observatory Annual Report series. Published annually since 2016 by the Collegio Carlo Alberto and the LdA (Laboratorio di Economia Applicata), in partnership with CEPR. Each edition uses the EU-LFS to benchmark migrant labour market outcomes against those of natives across EU member states. The tenth edition, published in 2026, is the first to offer a consistent decade-long comparison across the full series.

The EU Pact on Migration and Asylum. Agreed by EU member states in 2024, the Pact is the EU's most significant attempt to harmonise migration and asylum policy across member states. Frattini describes it as a step forward on harmonisation; he also notes that European policy continues to prioritise border control over integration, a balance he argues the data does not support.

More VoxTalks Economics episodes

Immigration and Public Goods (June 2023). Do immigrants put pressure on local schools, hospitals, and public finances? Research from the United States tests the most common fears directly. The findings have only become more relevant since the episode aired.