2008-12-07/Poorer education prevents more immigrants getting work
By Michael de Laine, Copenhagen, 7th December 2008
The number of non-western immigrants in work in Denmark has risen more sharply than for their Danish counterparts, but motivation in the form of further cuts in cash benefits and better teaching of immigrants could help them become a better asset for the labour market.
The percentage of immigrants from non-western countries in work in Denmark has risen from 33% in 1996 to 53% in 2007, according to a new report from the Confederation of Danish Employers (DA). This equals more than 47,000 people.
In the same period, the percentage of Danes in work rose from 75% to 79%.
The report, ‘Ikke-vestlige indvandrer & arbejdsmarkedet (Non-western immigrants and the labour market)’ shows that the prime beneficiaries of this development are refugees, whose numbers in work tripled from 1999 to 2007.
The report also shows that immigrants who have been in Denmark less than a year were more often in work in 2007 than their counterparts were in 1999.
Nevertheless, the DA report shows, 40% of non-western immigrants were outside the labour force in 2006, with many immigrants receiving the rather restricted cash benefits from the authorities. Only 50% of non-western immigrants are available for the labour market, while almost 70% of Danish are available.
However, there are wide differences among the individual local authorities in terms of bringing immigrants in work.
DA ascribes the work development among immigrants to a more targeted integration effort in recent years and ‘improved economic motivation’ in the form of (low) introduction cash benefits to new immigrants; the confederation sees further cuts in the cash help as the way to get more immigrants in work.
Education is another path, DA says.
“A Danish education is the best way to a job on the Danish labour market for both children of immigrants from non-western countries and for people with a Danish background,” the report states. There is no difference between the labour market participation of the children of immigrants and Danes when their vocational training is calculated into the statistics. But, the report notes, “Despite the considerable importance of education, only 47% of 30 to 39-year-old children of immigrants have vocational training, while 75% of people of Danish background have vocational training.”
Another new report, ‘Indvandrerne og det danske uddannelsessystem (Immigrants and the Danish education system)’ from the Rockwool Foundation Research Unit, notes that 71% of non-western immigrants aged between 16 and 19 are on education courses, compared with 78% for their Danish counterparts. But in the 20 to 24 age group the figures fall to 38% and 46% respectively.
The research unit ascribes the differences to the group’s varying social and economic conditions, while young adult immigrants with a non-western background are no better educated today that their counterparts were a decade ago.
The lack of development here could be connected with the rise in the number of so-called bilingual pupils in schools (from 7.7% of all school pupils in 1996/1997 to 10.1% in 2006/2007). In addition, the concentration of immigrant pupils in certain schools affects immigrants whose parents have a weak affiliation to the Danish labour market, according to Niels Egelund of the Danish University of Education.
However, he adds that there seems to be insignificant effects of mother-tongue teaching on immigrant pupils’ performance in surveys over the past decade, although those findings are not conclusive.
The Rockwool Foundation Research Unit report is published by Gyldendal.