Getting Ahead: Educational and Occupational Trajectories of the ‘New’ Second-Generation in Switzerland

Abstract

This paper examines the educational and occupational trajectories among second-generation immigrants of Turkish and Western-Balkan origin in Switzerland. Using a representative sample of 1107 respondents in two Swiss urban areas, the findings reveal that descendants of immigrants have reduced chances to follow a constant successful path from education to occupation, which is mainly determined by parental socioeconomic status. However, young adults of Turkish and Western Balkan origin are significantly more often upward mobile than the majority group, a pattern that is robust against a range of controls. We find parental monitoring and family cohesion to be positively related with upward mobility. Moreover, secondgeneration immigrants are more likely to be upwardly mobile than starting high in the education system but subsequently moving downwards-a profile that is more frequent among Swiss origin youth. Our multivariate results indicate that a lack of intense parent-child communication and perceived discrimination in school are affecting this downward process.

Understanding discrimination in hiring apprentices: how training companies use ethnicity to avoid organisational trouble

“…Three out of ten lower secondary school students are of foreign nationality in Switzerland, and immigrants from the Western Balkans (the successor states of Yugoslavia) and Turkey constitute two of the largest immigrant populations from non-EU countries (Schnell and Fibbi 2016). Both groups include a large proportion of youth.…”

Youth Transitions among Descendants of Turkish Immigrants in Amsterdam and Strasbourg:

“…Keskiner (2015) displayed that parents deployed varying strategies to influence their children's education across distinct education systems; in countries like the Netherlands where their impact is restricted by the system, they could exert less influence on their children's tracking choices. In Switzerland, Schnell and Fibbi (2016) found that young adults of Turkish and Western Balkan origin were more likely than their peers of native origin to be upwardly mobile in the education system (as opposed to starting high) and that parental monitoring and family cohesion played a significant role in regard to upward mobility.…”

Being inside out: the slippery slope between inclusion and exclusion in a Swiss educational project for unaccompanied refugee youth

“…Swiss scholars have repeatedly critiqued these schools for their stigmatising tendencies, and particularly for directing working class and migrant youth into lower qualified educational and vocational tracks (e.g. Del Percio and Duchêne 2014; Schnell and Fibbi 2016). Secondly, within the bridging schools the refugee youth were taught in separate classes.…”