Segmented assimilation in the Netherlands? Young migrants and early school leaving

Abstract

There has been ongoing debate in the Netherlands in recent years about second-generation immigrant youth, a debate fuelled by two rather persistent phenomena: high school dropout and unemployment among migrant youth. Fear exists that migrant youth will become marginalized. This raises the question: to what extent the position of migrant youth can be viewed as manifesting downward mobility, leading to a form of segmented assimilation? This article examines the problems of education and dropout, and discusses the significance of the many statistics which either prove or refute the assumed gravity of the problem. Then follows an outline of the policy landscape and the concomitant discriminatory effects to complete the picture. We conclude that downward segmented assimilation is not the dominant trend, and end with a discussion of new forms of ethnic exclusion that lay the blame for not integrating well into Dutch society on migrant youth themselves.

Keywords:

• Segmented assimilation
• school dropout
• unemployment
• second generation
• migrant youth
• discrimination

Notes

1. The term ‘non-western’ refers here to its application in the Netherlands. Non-western means people from outside the EU, such as those from Asia, Africa, South America.

2. The term ‘young migrant’ refers to the children of migrants (the second generation), born in the Netherlands.