Skills and Labour Market Integration of Immigrants and their Children in Flanders

Foreword

This review of the skills and labour market integration of immigrants and their children in Flanders is the fourth in a new series conducted by the International Migration Division in the OECD Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs (DELSA). It builds on previous country-specific reports by the OECD in the series Jobs for Immigrants (Vols. 1, 2, 3 and 4) and three volumes of the series Skills and Labour Market Integration of Immigrants and their Children.

As part of the second volume of Jobs for Immigrants, the OECD conducted a review of the labour market integration of immigrants in Belgium. Given the significant changes in the migration and integration landscape that have occurred since, and considering that constitutional reforms have brought down the bulk of responsibilities for integration to the regional level, a more regional perspective of the integration system is needed for Flanders. This review benefitted from the support of the Flemish Agency for Home Affairs, to assess how the Flemish integration system fares in international comparison.

It is an apt time for such a review. Despite its long history of providing a home for migrants, Flanders’ population of immigrants and their offspring is not particularly large in international comparison. Close to 14% of the Flemish population are born abroad and a further 10% of the native‑born have at least one foreign-born parent. Both these figures are close to the OECD average. However, growth in the population of immigrants and their native‑born children over the past decade has been among the fastest in the EU, outpacing that of the Netherlands, France and Germany, as well as Belgium as a whole. The foreign-born in Flanders come from an increasingly diverse range of countries and different migration categories and bring with them a concomitantly wide range of integration needs.

Amidst a tight labour market, immigrants’ integration outcomes in Flanders have strongly improved in recent years. Yet, progress is fragile and some of the core outcomes remain poor in international comparison. The highly unfavourable integration of non-EU immigrant women, refugees and youth with migrant parents merit particular attention. These groups are facing challenges that, if left unaddressed, risk compromising the potential of the economy, the society, and of the individuals themselves.

Over the past 20 years, Flanders has developed a comprehensive integration policy. At the beginning of 2022, a new Integration and Civic Integration Act entered into force. It aims at providing individualised support and continues Flanders’ substantial investment into the integration of newly arrived migrants during their first years of settlement. Its implementation coincided with the writing of this report, and outcomes remain to be seen, though some of the changes address previous shortcomings.

Against this backdrop, this report provides an in-depth analysis of the Flemish integration system, highlighting its strengths, weaknesses, and potential areas for improving the effectiveness of existing efforts. The report is structured as follows. Chapter 1 provides an assessment and recommendations. Chapter 2 presents an overview of the context in which integration in Flanders takes place – the size and composition of Flanders’ foreign-born population, as well as the labour market and the integration policy context and recent changes in these fields. Chapter 3 then sets out the core policies at the heart of early integration efforts, identifying the bottlenecks that currently compromise the integration pathways of new arrivals. Chapter 4 presents an examination of the efficiency with which the Flemish integration system recognises, builds upon, and uses the existing skills immigrants bring with them to Flanders. Chapter 5 then turns to the employer demand for these skills and how policy is working to strengthen this demand. Finally, Chapter 6 provides a closer look at the challenges that youth with migrant parents face in the Flemish educational system and when gaining their first foothold in the labour market.

Flanders swiftly adapted its integration framework to accommodate for the specific challenges arising from the inflow of refugees from Ukraine following Russia’s war of aggression. These measures are discussed in boxes in the different Chapters.

The evidence presented in this report builds on cross-country survey data, including the harmonised European Union Labour Force Survey, as well as the national Labour Force Survey (Enquête naar de Arbeidskrachten) and special surveys (SID-survey, Barometer Samenleven) designed for Flanders. Alongside survey data, the empirical analysis relies upon Flemish administrative data. Flanders has a high-quality system of administrative registers that can be linked, through a personal identification number, to provide a wide range of individual-level information covering integration, education and labour market outcomes. Notably, Flanders also registers integration measures, in contrast to other countries with a similar integration system. This provides unique opportunities for studying the effects of integration measures, as has been done for example in the recent VIONA project “Wegwijs naar Werk”, which is one of the most comprehensive analyses undertaken in the OECD to study integration measures and outcomes at this level.

A thorough appraisal of the integration system, and an examination of how the efficiency of investments might be enhanced, must be closely tailored to the Flemish context. To this end, this report has benefited from the insights of Flemish practitioners and is the result of a process that convened stakeholders from across the Flemish integration system – drawn from government departments and agencies, social partners, and private sector employers. Given the key role devoted to local authorities in Flanders, the OECD Secretariat conducted a mission to four Flemish cities and municipalities in the spring of 2022, to work together with local stakeholders on identifying the co‑ordination challenges and bottlenecks in the Flemish integration system.

OECD field mission to four Flemish cities in the spring of 2022

In May 2022, the OECD Secretariat visited three Flemish cities (Antwerp, Mechelen and Tienen) and one municipality (Heusden-Zolder) to meet local stakeholders, including city and municipal employees and officials, caseworkers from local employment services, social workers from the public social welfare offices, integration counsellors and civic integration and Dutch as a second language teachers from integration agencies, as well primary and secondary school heads and teachers.

Municipalities play a key role in receiving and integrating immigrants and in facilitating the coexistence of all inhabitants of Flanders. However, as there are major differences between municipalities in the size and the make‑up of their immigrant population, they also have different policy tasks. In some municipalities, labour participation is a major problem, in others housing or social cohesion, and in the larger cities all three often play a role. A brief description of the four cities and municipalities that have been visited is provided below, based on the Local Integration Scan published by the Flemish Agency for Home Affairs.

Antwerp: The highly diverse population centre

With 530 000 inhabitants, Antwerp is the largest city in Flanders. The share of inhabitants who are immigrants or native‑born to migrant parents increased sharply between 2000 and 2022. From 23% in 2000, it rose to just over 55% in 2022. Since 2018, the majority of inhabitants have foreign-born parentage, with four in ten inhabitants of non-EU parentage. Antwerp also has its own Integration Agency, called Atlas, which allows to pilot integration policies and initiatives.

Mechelen: A medium-sized city renowned for its model of living together

Mechelen is a medium-sized city of 90 000 people, situated between Antwerp and Brussels. In 2022, more than one out of three inhabitants had foreign-born parentage (coming from 16% in 2000), with North Africa as the most important region of origin. Two decades ago, Mechelen had a poor reputation due to high polarisation, social deprivation, and crime. Nowadays, the city is considered as a reference point for local integration policy in Flanders and well beyond, showing the way forward in efforts to live well together in diversity.

Tienen: A rapidly diversifying city

Tienen is a city (36 000 inhabitants) in the province of Flemish Brabant. The city has seen very rapid growth of its population of foreign-born parentage over the past decade (from 4% in 2000 to over 24% in 2022), in part due to high internal migration driven by low housing prices relative to Leuven and other surrounding cities (Flemish Brabant is the province with the most expensive housing prices). The increased diversity is strongly testing the local integration system, including the co‑ordination between different stakeholders.

Heusden-Zolder: A medium-sized municipality with longstanding migrant presence

Heusden-Zolder is a medium-sized municipality (34 000 inhabitants) in the province of Limburg. Due to its history as a former mining region, the municipality has a longstanding migrant presence, mainly of Turkish and Italian parentage. In 2022, four out of ten inhabitants had foreign-born parentage, modestly up from three out ten two decades earlier. The high and longstanding concentration of immigrants and their offspring in underprivileged neighbourhoods (citéwijken) makes residential and educational segregation a major concern.