Migrants and their descendants in Switzerland : an overview

The «second generation» born in Switzerland of for¬ eign Citizens is estimated at 6.8% of the total popula¬ tion, based on Population Census data from 2000 (Mey et al. 2005). Together, the first and the second gener¬ ation of «foreign origin» make up 27% of the Swiss population, 70% of which are foreign Citizens. One quarter of the first (24%) and one third (32%) of the second generation has acquired the Swiss citizenship.

Migrants and their descendants in Switzerland: an overview Werner Haug, Neuchätel 1 The context Of the countries belonging to the developed world, Switzerland has one of the highest proportions of international migrants, i.e. persons born in a country other than in their country of residence (foreign born).The large majority of these international migrants had a foreign citizenship at birth (20.1%).A recent study based on population censuses in OECD countries (Dumont & LemaTtre 2004) places Switzerland in the third position behind Luxemburg (32.6%) and Aus¬ tralia (23.0%), followed by New Zealand (19.5%) and Canada (19.3%) in terms of international migrants.
The percentage of non-citizens in Switzerland reflects similar results: 20.5% in the year 2000, second to Lux¬ emburg with 36.9%.No other OECD country with a population of over 1 million has as high a percent¬ age of non-citizens.In Australia, for example, non-citi¬ zens make up7.4% ofthe population, in Canada 5.3%.Germany, Austria and Belgium come dosest to Swit¬ zerland with figures around 10%.
The «second generation» born in Switzerland of for¬ eign Citizens is estimated at 6.8% of the total popula¬ tion, based on Population Census data from 2000 (Mey et al. 2005).Together, the first and the second gener¬ ation of «foreign origin» make up 27% of the Swiss population, 70% of which are foreign Citizens.One quarter of the first (24%) and one third (32%) of the second generation has acquired the Swiss citizenship.
In terms of access to citizenship and the political rights of migrants, Switzerland still shows features of a «guest worker policy», where migration is defined as tempo¬ rary labour migration and integration policies tend to be exclusionist (Penninx 2005).The Swiss migration and integration policy may be described as two-sided: open and welcoming for migrants that are «functional» for the labour market, restrictive and exclusionist with respect to «politically-motivated» applicants (Wicker 2004).
Since the early 1990's this policy approach has been reaffirmed by several public votes on migration and citizenship issues.On the one hand, all initiatives to limit the proportion of foreigners in the Swiss popu¬ lation through quotas were rejected.The free move¬ ment of labour with the EU15/EFTA countries was accepted as well as the accession to the treaties of Schengen and Dublin on border control and asylum procedures (June 2005).On the other hand, all proposals to facilitate the acquisition of citizenship, which is still entirely based on individual requests on the level of the communes and cantons of residence, were rejected (Achermann & Gass 2003; Steiner & Wicker  2004).The facilitated naturalization of foreigners of the second and third generation was rejected in a referendum in September 2004.At the end of the 1980's, the guest worker model of migration and integration came under strong criticism.
It was increasingly recognized that it produced nega¬ tive effects on the Swiss labour market and slowed down structural change, particularly through the sea¬ sonal workers scheme and the restrictions of free movement of foreign labour between cantons and sec¬ tors of the Swiss economy.The creation of a Single European market and European citizenship obliged Switzerland to modify its entry and residence regula¬ tions and guarantee as from June 2002 onwards the access to the labour market for all European Citizens in the framework of the bilateral agreements (Wicker et al. 2003;Piguet 2004; Mahnig 2005 for overviews).
The implementation of the bilateral agreement on the free movement of labour between the EU15/EFTA countries went hand in hand with a tightening of pol¬ icies towards migrants from outside the European Union and led to a redirection of migration flows.While positive net migration in Switzerland is slightly on the decline, the proportion of immigrants originating from EU/EFTA countries is growing at the expense of immigrants from non EU states (Staatssekretariat für Wirtschaft et al. 2005).
Researchers, media and policy makers increasingly rec¬ ognize the complex and multifaceted nature of migra¬ tion and integration processes, which is also highlighted by recent findings for Switzerland, based on the data of the Swiss Population Census 2000 (box 1).The fol¬ lowing contribution gives an overview of these find¬ ings.They refer in particular to spatial distribution, cul¬ tural diversity, labour market participation, integration of the second generation and the value of migrants as human capital.
The Swiss Population Census goes back to 1850 and is a particularly rieh data source with harmonized individual data records for the period 1970 to 2000, including geographical coordinates and information on ethno-cultural variables such as main language, spoken language and religion.Language and/or religion can be used as proxy for ethnie and regional origin of migrants and foreigners (e.g. in the case of ethnie Albanians from Kosovo).
The Population Census 2000 included for the first time questions on the acquisition of citizenship and double citizenship, in addition to questions on place of birth, place of residence five years prior to the Census and residence permits.On the basis of the Census the following groups are identified: international migrants (based on country of birth) according to citizenship; foreign Citizens of the immigrant and subsequent generations; naturalized Swiss of the second generation (born in Switzerland with foreign citizenship).It is however not possible to identify members of the second generation that are already born with the Swiss citizenship.The Swiss Census does not include direct questions regarding the migratory Status and the citizenship of parents.
According to the Population Census 2000, the resident population of Switzerland was 7.3 Mio, including 1.5 Mio foreign Citizens.The irregulär migrants residing in Switzerland, most of which are not included in this number, is estimated at 90'000 in a recent study based on expert views (Schweizerische Gesellschaft für praktische Sozialforschung, gfs.bern, 2005).The Population Census does not include Swiss Citizens residing abroad.In 2000, 580'000 Swiss Citizens were residing abroad according to the statistics of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (including persons with double citizenship), i.e. roughly 10% of all persons with Swiss citizenship (the annual net migration of Swiss Citizens is negative with minus 3000 to 5000 persons per year).
Box l:The Swiss Population Census as data source Die Schweizerische Volkszählung als Datenquelle Le recensement de la populalion en Suisse, une source statistique of the guest worker period.In 1970, 65% of the for¬ eign nationals in Switzerland originated from Italy and Spain, 20% from the neighbouring countries France, Germany and Austria.
In 2000, the number of foreign Citizens had increased by 420'000 to 1.5 million compared to 1970, whereby the percentage of Italian and Spanish migrants declined to 27% and the total percentage of the other three neighbouring countries feil to 14%.The huge changes in the European labour market as well as rapid economic growth in southern Europe led to major return flows to Italy and Spain.Foreign workers from Turkey, former Yugoslavia and Portugal started being permitted into Switzerland, as well as asylum seekers from Asia (much less so from Africa and Latin America).During the 1990's, the break-up of Yugoslavia and the wars in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo brought large groups of migrants and their families from these countries to Switzerland, partly due to existing ties between these two areas in the form of migrant networks.
In 2000,50% of the foreign Citizens in Switzerland (as compared to 5% in 1970!) originated from the succes- sor states of former Yugoslavia (24%), from Portugal (10%), Turkey (6%) and Asian or African countries (10%).68% of the children under 7 years with foreign citizenship were nationals of one of these countries and regions.Among the descendants of immigrants, persons of Italian and Spanish origin still dominate, but this is rapidly changing as the children of the new immigrant groups are born and raised in Switzerland -the majority of whom remain foreign nationals (Mey et al. 2005).
The changes in the origin of immigrants has affected the religious and linguistic composition of the popu¬ lation.In 2000, Muslim communities, originating predominantly from Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia and Turkey, aecounted for 4.3% of the population (1990: 2.2%), thereby advancing to become the third most important religious group behind the Roman Catholics (41.8%) and the Protestants (35.3%).These groups were followed by members of different Christian Orthodox Churches.Migration in recent years has also led to an increase in the number of Hindus (essentially Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka), Buddhists and some of the highly internationalized religious groups such as Jehovah's Witnesses (Bovay 2005).
With increasing religious diversity, a greater complex¬ ity of the linguistic Situation in Switzerland may be observed.The percentage of persons with a foreign main language (i.e. another language other than the four Swiss national languages: German, French, Ital¬ ian and Romanch) remained stable between 1990 and 2000 at 9%.This can be explained by the higher level of education and the better language integration of foreign migrants and particularly their children during this period.In 2000, 38% of the foreign Citizens indicated a foreign language as their main language as compared to 5% more ten years before.The most common foreign languages reflect recent immigration (luxes: Serbian and Croatian, Albanian, Portuguese, Spanish, English and Turkish.The linguistic diversity at the household level is much richer than may be observed at work and in public life: 52% of all foreign Citizens indicated in 2000 that they speak a «non-Swiss» language in their homes (Lüdi & Werlen   2005).
Two spatial dividing lines are particularly important in Swiss demography: the territorial language regions and the urban-rural divide across the regions.Migrants from different origins have preferences for certain lan¬ guage regions: the Portuguese migrate particularly to the French speaking cantons, while Serbs, Croats and Albanians reside mainly in the German speaking can¬ tons.English Speakers are concentrated almost exclusively in the urban centres with a transnational Service economy: Zürich, Basel and along the lake of Geneva.
In a few very touristic communes of the French and Italian speaking parts of Switzerland, foreign nation¬ als even make up the majority of the population.How¬ ever, the five largest urban agglomerations and in par¬ ticular their urban centres and working class districts have the highest percentage of immigrant populations.
Between 1990 and 2000, the spatial segregation (meas¬ ured by the index of segregation proposed by Duncan and Duncan) of foreigners between urban communes has slightly increased (Wanner 2004).Inside the cities and urban agglomerations the trends are very diverse (see the studies by Arend 2005; Heye & Leuthold   2004 and 2005).We see in many cases a decreasing seg¬ regation of southern European Citizens and an increas¬ ing segregation of Turkish and former Yugoslavian immigrants.However, this is not everywhere the case and it is not said that these trends will hold.
Compared with other urban agglomerations in Europe, spatial segregation along grounds of origin remains relatively low in Switzerland and is comparable to or even overmasked by segregation according to socioeconomic variables.In several areas and neighbour¬ hoods however, segregation indices do reach levels that may be considered critical (between 30% and 40%).
Segregation remains particularly high in Lucerne and in medium sized cities like Winterthur or Köniz and much higher in German speaking Basel and Zürich than in French speaking Geneva or Lausanne, although signs of increasing convergence are noticeable.
3 Migrants in the labour force 3.1 Labour market participation During the guest worker period, labour force partici¬ pation rates of foreign nationals were extremely high and exceeded those of the Swiss, particularly of Swiss women.20 years later, the picture is reversed: activity rates of men, both of Swiss and foreign nationals have declined.but the decline was stronger among foreign nationals with a participation rate in 2000 of 91% against 93% for the Swiss (including all persons in the labour force and all men aged 15-64 and all women aged 15-61, excluding persons in education).The main changes occurred however in the female labour force (photo 1) where participation rates increased at a much more rapid pace among Swiss women and reached 78% against 77% for foreign nationals (Wanner et al.

2005).
The reversal is even more marked if we take into account only persons in employment (i.e.without the unemployed).As in other European countries, unem¬ ployment rates among foreign nationals are much higher than among nationals and this is particularly the case for women.Both the changes in the motives and in the background of migrants (less migrant work¬ ers, more asylum seekers, more family reunification and formation) and the changes in the labour market itself (expansion of the Service sector, higher levels of qualification, increased offer of native female labour) make a successful integration of certain migrants groups in the workforce more difficult.
Nevertheless, this does not apply to all migrant groups.An increased diversity of the labour market Situation is apparent, making generalizations difficult.Employ¬ ment rates of male migrants from northern and west- ern Europe as well as from Portugal, Spain, Sri Lanka and Canada are at the level of Swiss Citizens.Next placed on the employment rate scale is a group of for¬ eign nationals from southern, south-eastern and east¬ ern Europe (including Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia and Poland), as well as the United States, Latin-America and Asia with employment rates between 82% and 88%.Among men originating from Turkey, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo employment rates drop below 82%.By far the lowest employment rates (under 70%) are found among persons originating from African countries south of the Sahara and from Iran.
Photo 1: Small hands and big luxury hoteis.The impor¬ tance of immigrant labour in the hotel business (Swit¬ zerland) Kleine Hände und grosse Luxus-Hotels.Die Bedeutung der Arbeit von Migrantinnen für die Schweizer Hotel¬ lerie Petites mains el grands hötels de luxe.L'importance du travail des migrants pour l'hötellerie suisse Photo: L. Nguyen Among foreign women, the heterogeneity in employ¬ ment rates is even greater.Citizens from Portugal, Spain, Croatia and Slovenia are integrated better into the work force than Swiss women (76% to 80%) and gender differences in employment rates remain below 10%.This reflects the traditional migrant worker's pro¬ file with a very high investment in the labour market (combined with low levels of discrimination).Close behind the Swiss women are the employment rates of Citizens from countries neighbouring Switzerland and most other member states of the EU, as well as among women from Bosnia-Herzegovina and Canada (70% to 75%).Citizens from Turkey, Kosovo, Macedonia, the United States and all other non-European coun¬ tries show employment rates below 70%.Low female employment rates find their source in traditional gender roles, family obligations, lack of appropriate qualifications and/or discrimination.The fact that women often follow male partners with a work permit or on temporary assignments as second¬ ary migrants makes their integration into the labour market particularly difficult.It is not surprising to see that the duration of residence in Switzerland has a sig¬ nificant effect on labour market participation, in par¬ ticular of women.Long term female residents (residing over five years in Switzerland) have a much higher rate of participation in the work force than recent immigrants.The level of education and knowledge of the local language have generally positive effects on the labour force participation of women, as does the place of residence: urban places offer much better employment opportunities for migrants than rural areas (Wanner et al. 2005).
A more detailed analysis shows in addition that Swiss women without children participate more frequently in the labour market than Swiss women with children below the age of 14 in the household.The latter group appears to frequently withdraw from paid employ¬ ment or reduce it to a very limited part-time engage- ment with the arrival of children.The same can be observed for German and North American nationals.Among all other foreign Citizens, employed mothers with small children are more common than among the Swiss.They are particularly high among women from Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Portugal and Spain.
It may therefore be observed that firstly, the overall convergence of labour market activity rates between Swiss and foreign women could well be the result of an increase of childless women among the Swiss, a decline in fertility and a reduction of the number of house¬ holds with small children.Secondly.the combination of family and work is much more frequent among migrant women.The latter group appears to have less time and financial means at their disposal which affects the investment into the upbringing and education of the children.
3.2 Unemployment Unemployment rates are on average two to three times higher among foreign nationals than among the Swiss.A closer look at the figures reveals again impor¬ tant differences.The unemployment rates of the Germans and North Americans are very similar to those of the Swiss.The difference to Citizens from other EU countries, Croatians and males from Macedonia or Sri Lanka is also minimal.On the other hand, unemploy¬ ment rates of Citizens from Serbia-Montenegro, Bos¬ nia-Herzegovina,Turkey, Asia, Latin America and par¬ ticularly Africa rise to as much as four lo five times those of the Swiss.
How can these differences be explained?Logistic regression modeis show that for recent male migrants from the European Union access to the labour market ison condition that all other factors are equalbetter than for the average Swiss, as they arrive with work contracts in the pocket (Widmer 2005).For other nationals, duration of stay and place of birth are impor¬ tant.Unemployment is highest among recent immi¬ grants, lower among long term residents and among the second generation, although differences to native Swiss never do appear to entirely disappear.
Other important factors for differential unemploy¬ ment are the level of qualification and the capacity to transfer educational investment into employment.The educational levels of immigrants from Germany, France, and other northern and western European countries as well as North-America are much higher than among the Swiss of the same age groups.Immi¬ grants from Africa, Latin America and Asia may have lower educational levels but they are higher than those of Citizens from southern and south-eastern Europe.
The data consistently show that persons without or with only little formal education have greater difficulty to be integrated into the labour market.This explains for instance an important part of the unemployment rate among Turks and Italians.On the other hand, the return on educational investment in terms of access to employment is much higher for Swiss nationals than for most foreigners.It is also high for migrants from Germany, France and North America but par¬ ticularly low for the Portuguese, for persons from the Balkan countries and for non-Europeans from devel¬ oping countries.
However, the most important result of the analysis is probably the high unaccounted for share in differen¬ tial unemployment rates based on objective criteria such as duration of stay, age and qualification, par¬ ticularly among men.The data suggesl that differen¬ tial behaviour and discrimination in the labour market probably have a significant impact on certain segmenls of the immigrant population, mainly on those persons originating from non-member countries of the EU and the developing world (Fibbi et al. 2003).  .3 Human capital: low and highly skilled jobs The qualification structure of the Swiss workforce has continuously improved since 1980, with a strong upswing in the 1990's.In 2000,50% of the labour force held highly qualified positions mainly in the Service sector, compared with only 28% in 1980 (Pecoraro 2005, who defines «highly skilled» in the broad sense dictated by the «Canberra Manual» of the OECD).
Among foreign migrants, the proportion of persons with highly qualified positions was on average always lower than among natives (19% as compared to 30% in 1980).The Situation deteriorated in the 1980's when the qualification structure of the Swiss rapidly improved and that of migrant labour stagnated.This contributed to the abolishment of the guest worker policy.With the introduction of free movement of labour within the EU, a modification of traditional source regions of for¬ eign labour was noticeable.
The Population Census data show the effects of this reorientation.The proportion of highly qualified jobs held by foreign migrants rose to 39% in 2000 and reaches even 62% among the most recent migrants (compared with 23% for recent migrants in 1990).Three quarters of the highly qualified new-comers originate from northern and western EU/EFTA coun¬ tries, and in particular from Germany and France.It should be noted that recent immigration from Italy and Spain has also undergone transition, the percent¬ age of persons employed in highly skilled positions increasing to around 40%.
However, there are also exceptions to the apparent trend towards higher qualified labour migration.The Portuguese (employed to a large degree in construc¬ tion, industry, agriculture and tourism) swim against the stream with the percentage of highly skilled posi¬ tions declining to only 6% among recent immigrants.The proportion of highly qualified labour also remains relatively low (15% to 30%) among migrants from Serbia-Montenegro.Bosnia-Herzegovina and Mace¬ donia as well as Turkey, although for the latter group an upward trend appears to be possible.Highly quali¬ fied immigrant labour from Latin America and Africa remained at the same level over the study period, the figures for these groups similar to those for recent immigrants from Italy and Spain, while the occupation of highly qualified positions among Asian migrants is strongly on the rise.
If the education level is taken into account in the ana¬ lysis of immigrant labour and occupation qualification, it is possible to paint a picture of the likely brain waste currently to be found on the Swiss labour market.
Logistic regression analyses show that the risk of a mismatch between qualification and actual employ¬ ment (in the sense of an over qualification) is only slightly higher for EU/EFTA and North American Cit¬ izens than for the Swiss.It is three times higher for persons originating from south-eastern Europe, Latin America and Asia and four times higher for persons originating from Africa.The risk of over qualification is significantly higher for women than for men and it is much higher for workers in agriculture and construc¬ tion than in all other sectors of the economy.
The greatest risk of brain waste is however linked to certain residence permits: asylum seekers, persons with humanitarian and temporary permits (not to speak of illegally residing residents without a permit) have only a very meagre chance to find a job that fits their qualifications. 4The integration of the second generation Integrating into the economy, society and culture of a country of destination is a long term process with different possible outcomes.The economic and social position of the second and third generations (the chil¬ dren and grandchildren of migrants) is particularly revealing with regard to the modalities, successes and failures of integration.
The data from the last 20 years shows that the second generation, and particularly women, is consistently better integrated than the first generation.The Italian and Spanish descendants have a much improved edu¬ cational background and better occupational positions compared to their immigrant parents (Mey et al. 2005;  Piguet & Besson 2005).The social mobility of the descendants of immigrants is on average much higher than for Swiss nationals with parents of similar educa¬ tional and professional background.The biggest differ¬ ences are observed among the descendants of recent migrants, particularly from former Yugoslavia, but also from Portugal and to a certain degree from Turkey.Nev¬ ertheless, several indicators seem to indicate that these groups will follow a similar path as their predecessors.
The naturalized Swiss of the second generation have educational levels and occupations that are not only comparable but even better than those of native Swiss of the same age.The educational level and the social Status of the parents have positive effects on the propensity to naturalize (Fibbi et al. 2005).This group of people that have naturalized represent a «positive selection».The limitation of an analysis of the migrant labour market to foreign nationals underestimates the overall Performance and upward mobility of the second generation.Many «secondos» and «secondas» can rightly be defined as «over performers» (Bolzman et al. 2003).
A closer look at the data leads however to a more nuanced judgment.The second generation is as heter- ogeneous as the first one and two opposing trends can be observed: a higher participation in tertiary educa¬ tion than among the Swiss and -at the same timea higher proportion of young and young adults that remain with only a minimal education (if all other factors are considered equal).Not only is upward mobility and over Performance more frequent, the risk of downward mobility, social exclusion and unem¬ ployment is also higher among the second generation immigrants than among the Swiss (Fibbi et al. 2005).
5 Conclusions Migration and integration in Switzerland follow different paths, depending on the motives for migra¬ tion (political.economic or family), the duration of stay, the legal Status, the educational and occupa¬ tional background of migrants and increasingly also their origin and sex.Gender equity is more advanced in some migrant groups than among the Swiss, less so in others.The «foreigner» as antithesis to the «Swiss» is a myth in a plural, open and individualistic society.However, it continues to have a mobilizing effect for feelings of deprivation and insecurity that affect certain groups of Swiss Citizens (as well as of settled migrants) as traditional identities are challenged and opportunities for upward mobility disappear under conditions of globalization and increased competi¬ tion in the labour market.Recent trends in immigration are in many respects different from those of the guest worker period and the migration of the 1990's.A stratified System of migrant statuses with differentiated citizenship and social rights is emerging with migrants from EU countries (with a distinction between EU15 and 25) at the top, followed by third country nation¬ als and at the bottom irregulär migrants and rejected asylum seekers originating mainly from the devel¬ oping world.Migrants from European Community countries form a more or less homogenous group with a high labour market participation and relatively low unemploy¬ ment.Citizens from the Balkans and Turkey show a mixed picture, some groups being very similar in education and labour market Performance to western and northern European Citizens, some being closer to migrants from southern Europe and regions of the developing world.Most non-European migrants have lower labour market participation rates.Access to the labour market is more difficult; human capital is often not transferable and they face discrimination in employ¬ ment.Safeguarding their human capital and antidiscrimination are emerging as fundamental issues for future migration and integration policies.Linguistic and religious diversity is growing, chai- lenging the educational System, the legal System, civil society, employers and the State.Switzerland is traditionally mullicultural, but it has not yet assigned an adequate place to the languages and religions of the new immigrant groups in its policy of multiculturalism.Difficulties of labour market integration and welfare dependency are generally overcome with increasing duration of stay.But for some groups, and particu¬ larly for women, difficulties of labour market inte¬ gration and the danger of social exclusion are real.
They might reach a new quality with certain groups of the second generation having only minimal edu¬ cational and insufficient vocational training.The non-citizenship of an increasing number of foreign¬ ers born and raised in Switzerland adds to the inte¬ gration challenge.However, long term integration processes in Swit¬ zerland are generally a success story.Children of migrants born in Switzerland have a better educational level and occupational Status than their parents.They are socially mobile, innovative and many of them are «over performers» compared to native Swiss.The contribution of migrants and their descendants to social mobility and to the stock of human capital is increasing and the trend to higher qualified labour migration is confirmed.Migration has an important potential to sustain eco¬ nomic growth.
Summary: Migrants and their descendants in Switzer¬ land: an overview Switzerland is one of the countries with the highest proportion of international migrants and non-citizens.Recent research findings based on the data of the Swiss Population Census 2000 underline the increas¬ ingly complex and multifaceted nature of migration and integration processes.This contribution gives an overview of the main research results referring to spa¬ tial segregation, cultural diversity, labour market par¬ ticipation and human capital of migrants and their descendants of the second generation.Growing reli¬ gious and linguistic diversity is posing new challenges for Swiss society and politics.Differences in labour market integration according to gender, origin and educational background of migrants are gaining in importance.However, integration difficulties are gen¬ erally overcome with increasing duration of resi¬ dence.The positive contribution of migrants and their descendants to social mobility and the stock of human capital are increasing and the trend to highly qualified labour migration is confirmed.