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The challenge of measuring immigrant origin and immigration-related ethnicity in Europe

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Journal of International Migration and Integration / Revue de l'integration et de la migration internationale Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Different European nation-states use the most diverse statistical constructions of foreign origin or ethnic minority populations. Several countries traditionally even shun from producing such data. This makes international comparison a very difficult endeavour. Anyone wanting to perform comparative research on immigrants or (immigrant origin) ethnic minorities in Europe is unavoidably confronted with the most diverse types of national statistical data and has to opt for ad hoc solutions. Attempts at international comparison can thus be very tricky due to data characteristics. It is important that researchers are aware of these problems and do not simply accept data (especially in comparisons) at face value. In this article we embark on a comparative explorative study of the way in which immigrant background and immigration related ethnicity is taken stock of by national statistical institutes in a set of European nation-states.

Résumé

Les États-nations européens utilisent des constructions statistiques très diversifiées afin de compter leurs minorités ethniques ou leurs populations issues de l’immigration. Plusieurs pays s’interdisent même de produire de telles données. Ceci entrave largement la comparaison internationale. Ceux qui veulent faire de la recherche comparative portant sur la situation des immigrés ou des minorités ethniques (issues de l’immigration) en Europe, seront confrontés à une grande diversité de données statistiques nationales qui sont peu comparables. Pour cette raison, la comparaison internationale sera toujours difficile, voir risquée. Il est important que les chercheurs soient conscients des limites et des risques liés à ce problème. Dans cet article nous entamons une étude comparative exploratoire des différentes stratégies de catégorisation ethnique utilisées par les instituts nationaux de statistiques dans une série d’États-nations européens.

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Notes

  1. When we refer to figures on immigrants in this paper, our focus is on nationals with an immigrant background and on foreigners with a legal residence status, but not on undocumented migrants.

  2. There is a vast literature on the exact definition of the concept of ethnicity. As a reference point for the purpose of this article we want to refer to the definition used by Conference of European Statisticians for the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (2006): “Ethnicity is based on a shared understanding of the history and territorial origins (regional, national) of an ethnic group or community as well as on particular cultural characteristics: language and/or religion and/or specific customs and ways of life” (UNECE 2006: 100). The current paper wants to take a more limited view on ethnicity in focusing on the importance of (post World War II) migration as a source of ethnic diversity.

  3. Italian law 943/1986.

  4. Italian law 286/1998 and Italian law 189/2002.

  5. Simon (2007) tentatively distinguishes three traditions: a “state-centred type” one (EU-15 except the northern European countries) in which country of birth and citizenship variables are collected; a “mosaic type” in which variables on nationality/ethnicity and language are collected (Baltic countries, central and eastern Europe, Balkans) and a “post-migration multicultural type” (UK, Ireland, Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries) in which info on ethnic group, religion and/or parents’ country of birth is gathered. Since our interest is focused on (post World War II) migration related ethnic diversity, we prefer to limit our attention to the “state-centred type” and the “post-migration multicultural type”.

  6. For instance Nordic countries, Non-western countries (Asia including Turkey, Africa, South and Central America and Eastern Europe) and Third world countries (Asia including Turkey, Africa, South and Central America).

  7. Statistical Yearbook of Foreigners in Denmark 2002. Annotated edition. (Danish Ministry of Refugee, Immigration and Integration Affairs).

  8. Statistics on Sweden's population are reported monthly, quarterly, biannually and annually. The Population Statistics are reported in three groupings:

    1. Population by sex, age, civil status, citizenship and country of birth

    2. Population change including, among other things, migration, births and death

    3. Population projections (forecast).

    More information is available in English at http://www.scb.se/templates/Product____25799.asp

  9. Article 24 quinquies of the law of 4 July 1962 with regard to public statistics, modified by the law of 1 August 1985.

  10. Regulation (EC) No 862/2007 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 July 2007.

  11. Preceding the drafting of the regulation, annual information on country of birth (combined with age and sex) was not available for the following EU member states: Czech republic, Germany, Estonia, Greece, Italy, Cyprus, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Hungary, Malta, Poland and Portugal (Cantisani and Poulain 2006: 200–2001).

  12. Tricky issues are (a) incomplete registration mechanisms for semi-automatic types of acquisition and (b) inclusion (or exclusion) of atypical forms of acquisition (for instance naturalisation of people living abroad, acquisition through adoption, reacquisitions of citizenship by former citizens, etc.) (Cantisani and Greco 2006b; Perrin 2006).

  13. In cases where the stock cannot be determined using information of population registers, an alternative ad hoc solution might be provided by a cohort approach using retrospective data from the census (Perrin 2006).

  14. This information being, however, presented as “born in Switzerland and nationality” and “born in a foreign country and nationality”.

  15. For France, the data are estimates. No Census data exists on country of citizenship for the UK (Cantisani and Poulain 2006). Estonia has Census data on the country of birth of the parents. Estonia equally has data on the self-indicated ethnic composition of its population, with an indicator of what they call ‘ethnic nationality’.

  16. Belgium is an interesting case in that it denies—mainly due to a Flemish veto—that there are ‘national minorities’ within its borders. Instead, it claims that there are only ‘national majorities’ which enjoy sufficient protection through complex linguististic laws and a federal system of checks and balances (Jacobs and Swyngedouw 2003).

  17. Mandla v Dowell-Lee, House of Lords, 1983 IRLR 209 H.L. 1983 2 A.C. 548, 1983 1 All E. R. 1062

  18. It can equally be noted that, according to this definition, most members of the Dutch royal family can be considered to be “allochthones”.

  19. Figures are available on the basis of estimations since 1972 and on the basis of data from the municipal administrations since 1995 (following the introduction of the Gemeentelijke Basisadministratie in 1994).

  20. Our translation. Second Chamber, 1999–2000, document 26815, p.5, note 2.

  21. Since 1999, statistical data on this distinction were produced, starting with data for the year 1996.

  22. There is also some information available on the place of birth of the parents. Though not collected by the census, data has been collected via the British Register (for England and Wales since 1970) and by the General Household Survey.

  23. A question on religion was present in the 2001 Census.

  24. This question was similar to the one asked in 1991, but with changes in some categories; for example, people could tick ‘mixed’ for the first time. Further information on the 2001 England and Wales Census questions on ethnicity and religion is available online at http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/profiles/commentaries/ethnicity.asp.

  25. The report can be consulted on-line: http://cci.scot.nhs.uk/Publications/2008/03/13131959/0

  26. Although the concept is operationalized in a very different way by Statistics Canada; namely by means of a self-categorization question

  27. This can be exemplified by the various manners in which self-classification questions in the US, UK and Canada are posed. Ethnicity, race, skin color, cultural background, ancestry and geographical areas or countries are used as operationalizations in various forms and in various combinations, across as well as within countries.

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Acknowledgements

A preliminary version of this article was presented in the Conference of the ESA Research Network for the Sociology of Culture on “Changing Cultures: European Perspectives”, Ghent, 15–17 November 2006. We thank the three anonymous reviewers of the Journal for International Migration and Integration for their very useful comments allowing for substantial improvement of this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut de Sociologie – METICES/GERME, Université Libre de Bruxelles (CP 124), 44 avenue Jeanne, 1050, Bruxelles, Belgium

    Dirk Jacobs & Laurie Hanquinet

  2. Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

    Marc Swyngedouw & Véronique Vandezande

  3. Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

    Roger Andersson

  4. Universidade Aberta, Lisbon, Portugal

    Ana Paula Beja Horta

  5. University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Maria Berger

  6. University of Trento, Trento, Italy

    Mario Diani & Katia Pilati

  7. Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain

    Amparo Gonzalez Ferrer

  8. University of Geneve, Geneva, Switzerland

    Marco Giugni & Miruna Morariu

  9. Bristol University, Bristol, UK

    Paul Statham

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  1. Dirk Jacobs
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  2. Marc Swyngedouw
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Correspondence to Dirk Jacobs.

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Jacobs, D., Swyngedouw, M., Hanquinet, L. et al. The challenge of measuring immigrant origin and immigration-related ethnicity in Europe. Int. Migration & Integration 10, 67–88 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-009-0091-2

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