Survey data and methods

13Our quantitative analysis of the labor market entry paths of immigrants’ descendants in the two countries (compared in each case to entry trajectories of native residents) aims to reconstruct the different stages these young adults go through from age 18 to 25, the life phase during which labor market entry is undertaken and initial trajectories get shaped. Data from the “German Socio-Economic Panel” (SOEP) and France’s CÉREQ “Génération 1998” (2005 survey) were used to this end (see boxed “Quantitative data and methodology” section in the Appendix). The first set are panel data ; the second are retrospective data. Both allow for retracing young people’s trajectories on a monthly basis. Respondent trajectories were reconstructed using the optimal matching method (Lesnard and Saint Pol 2006), with months of education or training differentiated from months of inactivity (i.e., staying deliberately off the job market), unemployment and employment (see boxed “Methodology” section in the Appendix). Similar trajectories were grouped together into “clusters” using the hierarchical clustering method. A multinomial logistic model was then estimated for each country, enabling us to take social origin into account and to compare geographic origin groups while controlling for social origin. This was done for two reasons : the social origin factor helps to explain socio-occupational integration trajectories ; on average, natives’ children and children of immigrants’ from the studies countries differ sharply in termes of social origin.

Field survey and typology construction

14The field survey was conducted in 2009-10 ; 175 young adult men and women, all children of immigrants, were surveyed in four disadvantaged neighborhoods in Paris and Berlin and their outskirts (see boxed “Field survey” section in the Appendix). Trajectories were reconstructed on the basis of 140 semi-directive interviews ; 35 interviews could not be used for sampling reasons. Respondents were found by way of neighborhood associations, local youth employment programs, or else on the street or in their place of work. Table A1 in the Appendix presents a few socio-demographic indicators for the sample.

15The qualitative typology was constructed by taking into account educational and occupational trajectories and action strategies. A strategy may be formalized, semi-formalized or non-formalized. Formalized strategies involve long-term action : individuals invest in training (scholastic, university, occupational) with the understanding that degree-acquisition or certification will lead to socio-economic integration. They turn to institutions (employment agencies, youth employment programs, businesses) to obtain qualifications and access to jobs. Particularly informal or non-formalized strategies are characterized by the importance of peer groups and mobilization of family or ethnic community networks, namely when it comes to job-hunting or obtaining financial resources. These are often short-term strategies (reliance on personal resourcefulness, “easy money,” neighborhoodlevel social service activity, ethnic community resources, etc.). People having difficulties in school, experiencing discrimination or acting in a time or place where no jobs or institutional support is available may be motivated to act in non-formalized ways. But such action may also result from giving priority to a certain sphere of life at a given phase in the life course ; e.g., the family : a young man or woman may choose to remain in the home. Not all activities resulting from informal or non-formalized strategies are linked to the underground economy.

16Moreover, the two strategy types (formalized and non-formalized) are not mutually exclusive and may be applied concomitantly or consecutively. A nonformalized strategy that involves mobilizing one’s peer group, for example, may follow on a more formal phase of scholastic effort that was undermined by scholastic, family, social or economic difficulties. Likewise a non-formalized strategy may be followed by a more formalized approach, as with young people active in the underworld economy (drug-dealing, possession of stolen goods, working under the table, etc.) who later choose to go back to school or do a training program, usually after a run-in with the law. Pursuing a more or less formalized or non-formalized strategy is not always correlated with trajectory success or failure for the cases described here. We might have expected trajectories that qualify as “successful” to be based entirely on formal, long-term strategies. However, non-formalized strategies that involve mobilizing resources in the immediate surroundings may prove successful in that they provide the individual with employment opportunities—within his or her ethnic community, for example—and a degree of employment stability. Our trajectory typology was constructed in part by retracing respondents’ scholastic and occupational trajectories (orientations, whether or not individual has scholastic difficulties, what channels she uses for obtaining employment, whether or not his labor market entry trajectory is “precarious”) and in part by analyzing those trajectories in light of respondents’ aspirations and degree to which their action strategies are formalized (turning to the ethnic economy, to family, whether they mobilize peers or institutions, etc.).

Labor market entry paths : The findings of the quantitative analysis

18Altogether, six types of labor market entry trajectories (“clusters”) were identified for France and Germany (Tables 1 and 3). Tables 1 and 3 show number of months spent in each of the identified states for each “cluster” ; sex and group of origin distributions (see also Groh-Samberg et al. 2012) are also indicated. Labor market trajectories of immigrants’ children in France and Germany differ on several points. First, an “inactivity” cluster (i.e., not being on the job market at all) was found in the German data (Table 2, No. 6) while nothing similar was found in the French data. Women are sharply overrepresented in this cluster. Multivariate results show that inactivity among young women of Turkish origin in Germany is not entirely explained by their modest social origins (Table 4, No. 6). Even after controlling for parents’ occupation(s), these women are more likely than daughters of native Germans to be found in the “inactivity” cluster than the “long education” one (the reference category for the independent variable). In the quantitative survey these women specified that they were not unemployed but simply inactive ; it is unclear from the survey whether this state results from quitting school or represents a lifestyle choice : staying in the home. The qualitative analysis goes some way to explaining the phenomenon (see below).

Table 1

Labor market entry paths from age 18 to 25 (France)

No. 1 No. 2 No. 3 No. 4 No. 5 No. 6 Total Long education Long education and stable employment Short education and stable employment Long education and precarious employment Short educationand precarious employment Unemployment and precarious employment N 3,466 1,733 1,921 1,299 2,841 2,011 13,271 % 26 13 15 10 21 15 100 Number of months in each state Training or education 75 45 23 57 25 24 43 Unemployment 2 1 3 3 5 20 6 Precarious employment 6 5 17 29 57 37 25 Stable employment 8 39 48 2 3 3 15 Inactivity 4 4 4 4 4 11 5 Distribution (%) Women 54 41 29 61 41 67 48 France 84 86 86 85 83 78 83 North Africa 6 4 4 6 7 10 6 Sub-Saharan Africa 0 1 1 1 1 1 1

Labor market entry paths from age 18 to 25 (France)

Reading : “Unemployment and precarious employment” paths are made up of a period of schooling/training (24 mos.), unemployment (20 mos.) and precarious employment (37 mos.).
Respondents whose parents immigrated from North Africa represent10%of persons on this path type but only 6% of the total sample.

Table 2

Multinomial estimation of labor market entry paths from age 18 to 25 (France)

No. 1 No. 2 No. 3 No. 4 No. 5 No. 6 Long education Long education and stable employment Short education and stable employment Long education and precarious employment Short education and precarious employment Unemployment and precarious employment Reference population : native French M0 : North Africa - 0.369** - 0.362** ns ns 0.590*** M1 : North Africa - 0.303** - 0,457** ns ns 0.306** M0 : Sub-Sahara ns ns 0.736* 0.697* 0.682* M1 : Sub-Sahara ns ns 0.683* 0.594* ns

Multinomial estimation of labor market entry paths from age 18 to 25 (France)

Note : The base model includes only origin and sex, N = 3,069, Pseudo-R-squared = 0.02.
M1 : With social origin (parents’ occupations) introduced into themodel, N=13,069, Pseudo-R-squared=0.05. Reading : Compared to their native French counterparts, young adults of North African origin, at equal social origin, are at significantly higher risk (positive unstandardized logit coefficient) for a trajectory characterized by alternating phases of unemployment and precarious employment than for a “long education” path.

Table 3

Labor market entry paths from age 18 to 25 (Germany)

No. 1 No. 2 No. 3 No. 4 No. 5 No. 6 Total High school and long education High school, training and employment Training and stable employment Training and precarious employment Unemployment and precarious employment Inactivity N 556 354 514 465 440 217 2,546 % 22 14 20 18 17 8 100 Number of months in each state* High school 18 18 1 1 2 2 7 Vocational training 7 32 20 19 26 11 19 Academic studies 55 5 1 0 1 0 13 Unemployment 1 4 3 5 21 8 6 Precarious employment 3 10 12 56 33 15 21 Stable employment 2 18 54 9 5 2 17 Inactivity 7 6 4 5 8 54 10 Distribution (%) Women 45 51 39 58 43 93 51 Germany 79 73 75 61 65 47 69 Turkey 6 5 8 15 11 32 11

Labor market entry paths from age 18 to 25 (Germany)

Note : *The sum of months is not always equal to 96 as some values are missing.

19Second, children of Turkish immigrants in Germany are sharply underrepresented in the “long education” path compared to natives, whereas children of North or sub-Saharan African immigrants in France are correctly represented in this trajectory type (Tables 1 and 2, No. 1). This may be understood as the effect of the education system on second-generation trajectories : the German system seems not to open onto “higher levels” like the French one. In France, the existence of a technical baccalauréat program means that some immigrants’ children do higher education studies ; moreover, persons in this group are more likely than native French young people to take that path than the general baccalauréat (Brinbaum and Kieffer 2009 ; Groh-Samberg et al. 2012). Our results here corroborate two international comparisons showing that the German academic system is closed to working-class children and children of labor immigrants (Heckman, Lederer and Worbs 2001 ; OECD 2004). Moreover, other studies have found that it is harder for these groups to get into Germany’s dual vocational training programs (Beicht 2011). Often, then, those that do take training find themselves in “transition system” programs that may end up shunting them off to the side of higher-level labor market opportunities (Christe 2011 ; Groh-Samberg et al. 2012).

20Above and beyond these country particularities, there are two similarities between the two countries. First, immigrants’ children’s labor market entry trajectories include more unstable or precarious jobs than those of natives. Second, compared to the respective native groups and at equal social origin, children of immigrants from North Africa in France and young women of Turkish origin in Germany are more likely to follow the academic path than to obtain stable employment after occupational training or a short educational program (see Table 2, Nos. 2 and 3 and Table 4, No. 2). This attests to these groups’ strong aspirations for upward social mobility, which may lead them to pursue high-level education programs (Brinbaum and Kieffer 2005 ; Becker 2010). Moreover, some studies have shown that intra-family transmission of the migration experience may lead to the internalization of certain values (discipline, respect, dedication, etc.), which then act as a kind of social capital (values, standards, confidence) that proves crucial to these young people’s success (Raiser 2007). Our field study likewise reveals the importance of migration heritage and the values associated with it in the trajectories of young people whose paths have been relatively steady or successful.

21Most of the results give the impression of greater employment insecurity and precarity on the German side, at least for children of Turkish immigrants, who show limited access to long education programs, and young women of Turkish origin, likely to show “inactivity” trajectories. However, the most precarious “clusters” (Table 2, No. 6 in France and Table 4, No. 5 in Germany) show that at equal social origin levels, children of North African immigrants in France are at greater risk than native French young adults for a trajectory of alternating unemployment and unstable or precarious employment, and less likely to undertake long education. On the German side, the overrepresentation of young men and women of Turkish origin in precarious employment is entirely explained by social origin. [11] Qualitative analysis allows for finer observation of variations in instability, namely by distinguishing young adults with zigzag trajectories from those who appear entrenched in a situation of insecurity and precarity and who therefore may be said to be “struggling just to get by” (en galère ; Dubet [1987] 2008).

Table 4

Multinomial estimation of labor market entry paths from age 18 to 25 (Germany)

No. 1 No. 2 No. 3 No. 4 No. 5 No. 6 Reference path : High school and long education High school, training and employment Training and stable employment Training and precarious employment Unemployment and precarious employment Inactivity Ref. population : native Germans Men (N = 1,249) M0 : Turkey ns 0.590** 1.590*** 0.938*** ns M1 : Turkey ns ns ns ns ns Women (N = 1,293) M0 : Turkey ns ns ns ns 2.398*** M1 : Turkey ns -1.682*** ns ns 0.795*

Multinomial estimation of labor market entry paths from age 18 to 25 (Germany)

Note : For Germany the logistic models were estimated separately for men and women due to the presence of an “inactivity” cluster specific to women.
M0 : When the base model includes only origin and survey year, Pseudo-R-squared is 0.02 for men and 0.05 for women.
M1 : With social origin (parents’ occupations) introduced into the model, Pseudo-R-squared is 0.07 for men and 0.10 for women.

22The statistical results provide a data frame for France and Germany. They also account for degree of ethnic penalty and the impact of social origin. The qualitative field study reveals other characteristics that are important for analyzing immigrants’ children’s labor market trajectories, this time from the actors’ point of view. With “life course” trajectory analysis, for example, it is possible to identify turning points in a given trajectory (Hareven and Masaoka 1988 ; Abbott 1997) [12] and grasp the importance of national, local or family context in trajectory formation. The qualitative study done in Paris and Berlin and immediate outskirts thus complements the quantitative analysis results.

Ideal-typical trajectories found in the field study

23The six trajectories found in the qualitative study were defined in terms of the consecutive stages respondent underwent in the passage from adolescence to adulthood (training, employment, unemployment, etc.) but also the type of action logic used (Table 5). The “struggling to get by,” “family as priority” and “ethnic economy” types all involve a type of action logic focused on non-formalized resources. However, people in these three situations (with very few exceptions) are found to have had relatively formalized strategies until middle school in terms of aspirations and investment in schooling. Respondents in the “struggling to get by” category recall the “en galère” figure described by Dubet ([1987] 2008 : 11, 26-7), increasingly entrenched in a particular locale (socio-geographical confinement to a disadvantaged neighborhood), state of idleness and feelings of anger. Respondents themselves often use the expression “struggling to get by” to describe their situation. The majority of them make a living (or did at one time in their trajectory) engaging in criminal activities (drug-dealing, possession of stolen goods, house breaking, etc.). The fact that such activities bring in money fast is crucial and takes priority for them over any long-term investment. This type of orientation is characterized by the use of peer group and informal networks to engage in activities that may well prove more lucrative than wage-paying work or training. Above and beyond the purely pecuniary aspect, respondents often mention uncertainty about being able to find work after training. The switch to non-formalized strategies (delinquency or using one’s immediate networks to get unsteady “odd jobs”) is the first decisive turning point in their trajectories, trajectories that in most cases result from keeping company with people who exert a “bad influence,” a sense of being discriminated against, and/or patent scholastic failure between the ages of 13 and 16.

Table 5

Distribution of trajectory types by country and sex

France Germany Strategy Ideal type Women Men Women Men Formalized Purely institutional orientation (28) 11 2 12 3 Semi-formalized Institutional orientation w/lifebuoy (34) 9 10 4 11 Precarious (43) 5 15 8 15 Non-formalized Ethnic economy (9) 0 2 2 5 Family as priority (17) 4 0 13 0 Struggling to get by (9) 0 6 0 3 Total (140) 29 35 39 37

Distribution of trajectory types by country and sex

24Young people in the “purely institutional orientation” category use or have used institutions to build a career and generally have not turned to their immediate networks to find employment. Young adults in this category usually turn to education and have long-term objectives. It is reasonable to assume that this orientation is what underlies the “long education” trajectories identified in the French and German quantitative data (see Tables 1 and 3, No. 1). Some of the young people we interviewed are intrinsically motivated by a desire to acquire knowledge and educational degrees, or else their parents have urged them to pursue their education. In the latter case, their parents’ aspiration to upward social mobility—part and parcel of their migration history—comes to play a decisive role in their own trajectory, a much stronger role than for young people in any of the other path types. For some, attending a university outside their city is the only way besides marriage to leave their parents’ home. For young people living in Germany with uncertain residence rights—particularly young adults whose parents emigrated from the Middle East—earning a degree may prove an important means of acquiring legal residence status. In all cases, institution-oriented young adults say that educational achievement is crucial for succeeding socially. Some might be able to turn to the ethnic economy as a fall-back solution in case of failure, but as they see it this is not a real option given their occupational aspirations. Others have no privileged access to jobs in the ethnic community.

25Lastly, for “precarious” and “institutional orientation with a lifebuoy” types, formalized strategies alternate or overlap with non-formalized ones, justifying a definition of action strategy formalization in terms of a spectrum rather than the “formalized/non-formalized” opposition. Women and men with “precarious” trajectories, meanwhile, string together odd jobs, government-subsidized employment and temporary work. These trajectories are unstable—visually a zigzag. [13] These young people find it hard to imagine a future for themselves or to construct an occupational future. Some turn to their immediate networks as a means of finding employment, thus alternating between formalized and non-formalized strategies in “constructing” their trajectory. The “institutional orientation with lifebuoy” concerns young persons pursuing long or short educational programs while working on the side, that job being their lifebuoy. This semi-formalized action strategy ensures they will still have work if their educational or occupational project fails.

26With the exception of the “family as priority” type, all the persons we met with grant priority to their studies (in which they are doing more or less well) or their occupational or money-making activity rather than to starting a family of their own, either because they prefer to make the most of their freedom or because they want to become occupationally integrated before assuming family responsibilities.

27Analysis of field study material brings to light trajectories that would be hard to identify in the quantitative data ; e.g., seeking a job in the “ethnic economy” and “institutional orientation with lifebuoy.” “Ethnic economy” paths are much more salient in Germany, as are “women in the home”—i.e., “family as priority”—ones. “Struggling to get by” trajectories, on the other hand, have more weight in France. Combined analysis of quantitative and qualitative results will enable us to discover more about the most salient features of the France-Germany comparison for certain trajectory types.

The weight of inactivity in young women’s trajectories : A German particularity

29The quantitative results brought to light an “inactivity” trajectory confined to the German side in which young women of Turkish origin are sharply overrepresented compared to daughters of native Germans (Table 3, No. 5). Though the lower average social origin of the former group goes a long way toward explaining this phenomenon it does not entirely explain it (Table 4, No. 5). Likewise, in the field we met more often in Germany than in France with young women whose trajectories were marked by occupational inactivity. Often they had made a priority of getting married and starting a family. In the qualitative sample, this tendency was found to be slightly more widespread among women of Middle Eastern than Turkish origin. Two situations may be identified on the basis of the interviews conducted in Germany. One, young women opt for marriage as soon as they attain their majority to fill the void created by scholastic records marked by failure, lack of educational degrees, or the absence of any prospects for obtaining occupational training. Two, either they have had to cope with an accidental pregnancy or have underestimated the work involved in starting a family and managing a household. In both cases they resign themselves to remaining in the home.

30

When I quit school [in the third year of middle school] I went to work in a childcare center cafeteria. … I couldn’t do a training program because of my residence paper problems … I went to the state employment center anyway to ask them if I could enroll in a training program. But it was then that I became pregnant with my oldest girl, and since then I haven’t been able to do anything. … I took three years maternity leave, and when she went into childcare [15] I wanted to go back [to a training program] and I stayed in it eight months but then I got pregnant again. … I would really like to have gotten [real] occupational training but I’ve always wondered what’s the use of going to school if it doesn’t lead to a job. In any case, I won’t be getting any certificate. … You try really hard, but in the end they don’t give you a slot in a vocational training program. In any case, you end up being a housewife.

31

I was hardly going to school anymore and he was always there waiting for me outside school and all. Afterwards we got married, a Muslim wedding. … Meanwhile he discovered [that I was studying music] and he said, “It’s school or me.” … I said, well … I wanted to have a family and all that. So I stayed with him. …That’s how it is, you’re like a child who believes everything they tell you. He said I didn’t have to go to school, that he’d feed me and take care of me.

32The representativity of these two respondents may be explained in part by the fact that there is much stronger approval in Germany than in France for staying in the home. This longstanding observation was confirmed by the 2007 national reform of parental leave, which currently stands at 65% of salary plus unemployment benefits for fathers and/or mothers taking 12 or 14-month (maximum) parental leave, for a maximum amount of €1,800. Inactive persons who become parents are likewise eligible for this benefit and are entitled to €300 a month for 12 months (maximum) after the birth of the child. Above and beyond this German particularity, a desire to leave parents’ home is what pushes some young women into marriage in both countries, as attested by the remarks of a young woman in France :

33

I went as far as the last year of general high school. Because I was in love and everything—an Algerian in Algeria. And the only way I could marry him was to go live there. … So I dropped everything, school … I started working and all. Well, [the marriage] never took place, you see … I’d dropped out so I went to work. I met [my new love] immediately afterward in fact—love at first sight. … We started dating, we got serious, we had a halal wedding. And then my son arrived. … I think that when you get married young like that you do it to escape the family home. … Girls are able [to go out at night] now precisely because we were there before them. And [their mothers] don’t want their daughters to make the same mistake : getting married to escape and coming back home [divorced] five years later with three or two kids.

34For the relatively few women to whom this model applies in France, the phase of retreating into the family they start was only transitional ; all began occupational careers a few years after the birth of their child(ren). This is not the case for their counterparts in Germany, most of whom never really became (re)integrated into the working world and all of whom are in precarious economic situations. Some do skills-training programs and express satisfaction about acquiring relative financial independence and escaping parental constraints. But the interviews done in Germany show that finding a job is hard for someone who has acquired skills and qualifications relatively late in life. This relative failure to obtain employment is primarily explained by the fact that these young women are persistently torn between the desires to find work and to remain in the home ; also by the unattractive job possibilities that state employment agency training programs prepare people for.

The “lifebuoy” and “ethnic economy” types : Alternative means

35The qualitative comparison of France and Germany shows that the means young people use to construct their labor market entry trajectories differ by country. The French case is distinguished from the German for its “with lifebuoy” type. Whereas young adults in the French sample frequently turn to activities in their immediate neighborhood to earn a living (often only temporarily), use of this type of alternative resource is seldom found in the German sample. Many of the young people we met with in France are engaged in activities related to social work, either in sports or in connection with local or other associations, activities that may work as alternatives if they encounter failure in the education or training they are pursuing at the same time. The remarks of two young men illustrate the importance of such “lifebuoys” :

36

I got certified as a sports instructor while I was working with little kids in the neighborhood football club. And six months ago I obtained my state license. I’m currently running a program for the youngest category in a football club. So I thought … In fact, I got my certification to learn the skills to do this. And afterwards, as I moved forward, when I got to state license level, well, I thought, I’m going to keep on with my training (to become a railroad switch man) but if that doesn’t work at least I can always do this other thing. It’s more like a safety exit.

37

I work in the local recreation center running activities. And I’m a football instructor there. I’ve got my first-level “Initiator” certification and soon I’m going to take the second-level “Initiator” certification. … I said to myself, “If it turns out school is not my thing, at least I’ve got something else.”

38Respondents in Germany speak much less about using neighborhood social networks this way ; they are more likely to turn to family, friends and ethnic networks, which also function as a “lifebuoy.” On the German side, then, young people with “institutional orientation with lifebuoy” trajectories more often work in ethnic community institutions (mosques, associations linked to their parents’ country of origin) while pursuing education or training :

39

Last year I had big housing problems just before taking my exams. I found myself on the street in the middle of the night, the mosque sisters took me in. … So I thought about it : if everything falls apart, I’ll go to Qatar and do an internship with Al Jazeera. … That’s what they offered me. … It came from someone at the mosque—the plan to work there, I mean. Translating for the people at the Saudi Arabian embassy. So I applied to do that.

40Conversely, the “ethnic or family economy choice” is not as well represented in the French sample. No more than 2 young men belong to this category for France, as opposed to 5 men and 2 women in Germany. This trajectory encompasses young people working in the family company or shop either voluntarily or because they have no other choice and young people opening their own business with family help. Some have pursued an education ; others have not. They are usually very close to their extended family and they attained adulthood, in the sense of starting to work, at a young age. These respondents often note the lack of prospects that relatively highly educated persons in their family have had to face. They themselves have chosen to anticipate the problem and use their family or community networks to construct an occupational future :

41

Thanks to my family I knew I wouldn’t die of hunger. I said to myself, “My family has no problems, so to hell with school. They’ve got work for me in any case !” I see people among my customers who are unemployed—teachers, PhDs, doctors. … And when I see that I say to myself that I made the right decision [to quit school], in fact.

42The differences between French and German integration conceptions and policies may explain the greater tendency in Germany to turn to one’s ethnic community. The integration context in that country is likely to favor maintaining strong ties with the community : up until very recently it was virtually impossible to be naturalized German [16] and there was no real integration policy or understanding of immigrant populations as an integral part of German society (Tucci 2008). This means that support from one’s ethnic group network constitutes a considerable resource for young people belonging to the larger ethnic communities. In France the tendency to turn to neighborhood social resources instead may be explained by state policy initiatives designed to increase opportunities, especially a late-1990s employment program targeting young people for state-subsidized job contracts, often in the field of neighborhood and local association activities (Kirszbaum et al. 2009 : 39). This would explain the strong presence of young adult children of immigrants in this sector in France. [17]

43The more frequent use of family and ethnic networks in looking for work on the German side of the Rhine is not entirely explained by hiring discrimination against second-generation job applicants since hiring discrimination is also widespread in France (Goldberg, Mourinho and Kulke 1996 ; Adida, Laitin and Valfort 2010). We can reasonably hypothesize that a desire for occupational independence is behind this choice in Germany. Contrary to children of North African immigrants in France, children of Turkish immigrants in Germany continue to be overrepresented in manual and industrial jobs and have little access to white-collar jobs (Tucci 2010). Becoming one’s own boss means escaping the constraints linked to subaltern, often physically wearing jobs. Lastly, it may be that early scholastic tracking of students with immigrant parents in Germany, sometimes followed by difficulty finding a slot in dual vocational training programs (Diehl, Friedrich and Hall 2009), means that family and/or ethnic networks are the only option a young person has. Young adult children of immigrants in France escape this model, remaining longer in general or university education and so acquiring skills of the sort needed to emancipate themselves from family and/or ethnic networks. Moreover, studies such as Crul and Vermeulen (2003) have highlighted that being an entrepreneur is important and attractive to young people of Turkish origin in the Netherlands but significantly less so to young people of Moroccan origin in the same country. The authors connect this result with the importance of family and the strong social cohesion that characterize the Turkish community. Leicht et al. (2005) showed that from 2000 in Germany the number of businesses in the Turkish community rose more sharply than in any other immigrant community.

“Precarious” trajectories and attitudes toward institutions

44The quantitative results brought to light similar situations in the two countries with regard to precarity, though social origin does not entirely explain the higher representation of young people of North African origin in unemployment and precarious employment in France. The “precarious” and “struggling to get by” trajectory types identified by way of the qualitative material are characterized by acute economic and social instability, illustrated among other things by the fact that the majority (two-thirds) of these young adults in France and Germany leave school without obtaining a degree. “Precarious” men and women have zigzag trajectories composed of odd jobs. These young adults generally aspire to start a family but want to ensure they will have some occupational and financial stability before doing so. Lastly, young people who have been “struggling to get by” are more likely to have broken with institutions and for a longer period of time than those with “precarious” trajectories.

45The France-Germany comparison also shows from a purely qualitative perspective that while young people in France are much more likely to break or have broken with institutions and for a longer period than those in Germany, those in the “struggling to get by” category are particularly “far” from institutions : having no prospects is more often mentioned by young people in France, and these same persons are more likely to have a criminal record and express “hatred” for institutions or the state—a trajectory feature and feelings not found among the young people interviewed in Germany. France’s colonial past, the feeling among immigrants and later their children of being caught in a “dominator/dominated” relationship may explain this difference between France and Germany (Jossin et al. 2012). In some interviews, actors expressed the sense that there is no recognition of the history of migration in France, also complaining of being unfairly tracked toward non-prestigious disciplines because of their migrant origins and the fact that they had attended schools in disadvantaged neighborhoods. In some cases young people cite these points to explain their difficult trajectories, which often include dropping out of school, delinquency and court convictions :

46

You can’t say they really helped me at school. French [language and literature], history—and what were the histories ? Histories of Charlemagne ! We’re not interested in that. That stuff doesn’t come from where we do ! We’re Africans, get it ? … There’s a whole lot of things they did that are no use to us at all. That’s why today, man, we do what we want to do. Make money and have a good time—that’s all. … If you want to learn at school, if [you know] what you want to do later, that’s fine … But [if] you don’t know what you want to do later it’s absolutely no use going to school. …. How did I quit school ? Because they wanted to send me into construction work ! Incredible. I don’t have a profile for doing construction work ! I thought it was a vocational degree, a BEP or a CAP, [18] something like that. I quit school when I was 18, I think. After middle school I did one year … and then, man, I quit going to class. They oriented me toward a vocational integration program. But those programs, it’s the same thing. If you don’t know what you want to do you just don’t get anywhere. … They say “Go do that, you’ll like it !” but man, I’m not going to like that !

47The young adults interviewed in France report numerous instances of discrimination (coming from teachers, police, fellow citizens, employers) in their trajectories and express fear of hiring discrimination. Moreover, given how often young adults “struggling to get by” are involved in illegal activities, their relationships to institutions are often summed up by their relations with the police and courts. These feelings of distrust are clearly illustrated by the remarks of a young man of 22 :

48

In the neighborhood we live in it’s very simple, we say : “The French state has never done a thing.” … We’ve always been stuck in these housing projects. So we learned to get out using whatever was at hand. My father told me what he went through. … The Schmidts, the cops, said “Bunch of filthy Arabs !”—that was normal. “Bunch of filthy bougnoules !” [highly pejorative term for Arabs]—that was normal. And if he said something they’d sock him in the mouth so hard he fell on the ground ! To me, regarding the Koran, the cop at the desk said, “Listen, this isn’t your country so get your damn bags packed cause you’re going to be out of here soon !” And I’ve got my French identity card—I’m French ! I’ve lived longer in France than in my country. … As soon as I can pull together just 400,000 or 500,000 euros I’m out of here, I’ll never come back to France. Never ever. Won’t miss anything in France. … Everything they put me through in France. … It’s all that that explains why I don’t like this country today.

49Another striking difference between France and Germany concerns the effects of dropping out of school. In France that move is often definitive and there is no going back. In the cases we observed, young people often dropped out of school after a bad experience of being tracked into certain vocational areas on completion of middle school. Young people who give up on obtaining the CAP or BEP they were tracked for seldom turn to social or vocational integration institutions. Several studies of Germany show that access to dual vocational training programs is more difficult for young persons whose parents come from Turkey (Beicht 2011) ; they often find themselves in transition system programs (Übergangssystem). However, our field study shows that this system and the employment programs made available by Germany’s state employment agency are more likely to give young people having difficulties in school a “second chance” (Tucci et al. 2011) in the form of a new opportunity to earn a general high school degree or do occupational training. While occupational programs may be a source of frustration and fail to offer exciting job prospects, they nonetheless train young people for a job and keep them in an institutional structure while doing so. [19] A difficult situation on the labor market in France—one that is particularly hard for young adult children of immigrants living in the two neighborhoods studied here—together with the near absence of welfare benefits for young adults or any “second chance” within the schooling system darken the overall picture in that country. While a few financial aid programs have been set up, young people in France do not always have the social resources or information needed to take advantage of them. Their categorical rejection of institutions and, in some cases, their entrenchment in the underground economy work to widen the distance separating them from institutional aid.

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52In France and Germany alike, young adult children of immigrants experience trajectories marked by unemployment and occupational instability more frequently than the children of natives. In Germany the disadvantage experienced by the descendants of Turkish immigrants is explained by social origin ; this is not the case for descendants of North African immigrants in France. In both countries, choosing to undertake a long educational program seems for some a means of postponing labor market entry, since finding employment often looms for them as an extremely difficult undertaking. On the French side, this kind of temporizing of labor market entry may partially be explained by fear of hiring discrimination, though young adults who make an effort to acquire educational degrees in this country are the least likely to report ethnic or geographic (residence-based) discrimination. Our quantitative results show that attempts to attain upward social mobility through higher education, often founded on parents’ project in migrating, are less frequently encountered in Germany than in France. The early selection and orientation practiced in the German education system definitely impede any leveling of inequalities related to ethnicity and social origin. However, though the German system seems at first sight profoundly non-egalitarian, it does allow for bringing young adult dropouts back into the school system. This “second chance” is a strong point of the German educational system in that it maintains young people within institutional “safety nets.” The field study revealed a French specificity on this point : young respondents having scholastic and/or social difficulty have harsher attitudes toward and relations with the state and institutions (mainly school and the police). Surprisingly, attitudes of distrust and defiance of this kind are virtually absent in our sample of descendants of Turkish and Middle Eastern immigrants in Germany, despite their being subjected to massive segregation within the school system and despite the fact that it is much more difficult for them to acquire German citizenship than for the children of immigrants in France to acquire French citizenship. It is precisely this last difference between French and German conceptions of integration that explains in part the fact that young adult children of immigrants in a situation of failure in France are more distanced from institutions than their counterparts in Germany : young descendants of immigrants in France are (for the most part) French citizens ; they are therefore much more sensitive to the discrimination they may undergo in a country that proclaims their equal rights without really keeping that promise. Moreover, French colonial history seems to play a role in these feelings of distrust and defiance toward the French state. The critical view that young people of immigrant descent in France have of national institutions makes still more sense when we take into account the French and German social protection systems : the financial aid granted to persons under 25 east of the Rhine is more generous and so reduces the precarity of particularly vulnerable young adults during their entry into adulthood.

53Lastly, our analysis, based as it is on both statistical and qualitative data, shows the diversity of trajectories among immigrants’ descendants, bringing to light typical paths while highlighting the impact of national context on young people’s integration as well as the importance of what kind of resources they have. The field survey points to the importance of using networks of friends as well as social and institutional networks to construct one’s occupational trajectory. In France, the fact that several young men and women pursue their education while working as sports instructors or running recreational programs shows they prefer to have a fall-back plan and so to multiply possible job opportunities rather than concentrate on a single training or educational path. This attitude attests to both a will to succeed and a consciousness of the fragility of what they are seeking to build for themselves. Descendants of immigrants in Germany, meanwhile, seem more likely to turn to the ethnic communities. This may be due to what was until very recently the absence of any real policy for integrating and including immigrants and their children in the German community of citizens.