Trajectoires et Origines 2: new survey

A reference survey on the diversity of French society

The book is based on a survey of the same name, Trajectories and Origins 2 (TeO2), the second version of a major statistical operation launched by INED and INSEE. The initial survey, TeO1 was conducted in 2008-2009  in response to requests from several institutions and to meet EU statistics requirements and research needs. The new TeO2 survey was planned by INSEE in consultation with INED to gain access to quantitative information on the full range of different origins in France and the issue of discrimination. Like TeO1 before it, TeO2 is a multi-theme survey that contributes complementary and in some cases entirely new analyses of numerous subjects on which the country had collected relatively few public statistics. The general purpose of TeO is to collect objective situations and reported subjective experiences to better understand immigrants’ administrative and social trajectories, those of their descendants (second and now third generations), and of the entire population of metropolitan France.  

TeO2 innovations 

TeO2 was conducted from 2019 to 2020 with a sample of over 27,000 people aged 18 to 59. The material collected has enabled researchers to analyze processes of participation in both socioeconomic and sociocultural areas. The questionnaire contains new sections on health, cultural practices, and religion, as well as opinion questions on immigration, diversity, and gender equality. And for the first time ever, third-generation immigrants were included by way of questions on grandparents’ origin, while an experimental complementary survey was conducted with grandchildren of non-European immigrants. 

France: a society deeply marked by long-term immigrant settlement and mixed unions 

Being able now to describe the third generation allows for detailed study of the impact of immigration heritage on French population structure. 13% of the country’s population aged 18 to 59 are immigrants; another 11% of th general population belong to the second generation; meanwhile, the third generation (defined as persons with at least one immigrant grandparent) accounts for 10%. This means that a third of the population of metropolitan France has a direct tie to immigration over three generations. Furthermore, these three strata—starting with the immigrants themselves—are intermixed with the majority population through intermarriage and mixed unions generally.

With regard to immigrants, the proportion of mixed unions is considerable: 39% of immigrants are married to or partnered with a person of another origin than their own, and 29% of those spouses or partners do not themselves have immigrant parents or grandparents. The proportion of mixed unions is even higher in the second generation: 59% are married to or partnered with someone of a different origin than their immigrant parents, while 45% of those spouses or partners do not have an immigrant family background. Meanwhile, being born not to two immigrant parents but to a mixed couple reinforces the mixed-union dynamic: 90% of children and grandchildren? of mixed couples have a spouse or partner of a different origin than that of their immigrant parent, and 74% of those spouses or partners (like that couple’s majority-population parent) do not come from an immigrant family background.

Conversely, 12% of the majority population is married to or partnered with an immigrant or member of the second generation. These intermixing dynamics extend ties to immigration within the population at large: 41% of the entire population aged 18-59 living in metropolitan France is now connected to immigration either by way of origin or marriage/union. 

Persistent inequalities by origin

The book brings to light the permanence of inequalities in several essential areas of social life not only as they concern different immigrant populations but also their descendants and the rest of the population. The results show that the experience of discrimination has risen since the TeO1 survey, particularly in relation to sex, and that this experience is quite common among members of racialized minorities, a category exposed to stigmatization and numerous social disadvantages related to origin and skin color.

Immigrants from North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa and their descendants continue to be more exposed to educational difficulties than other immigrant groups or the majority population, as well as to discrimination in access to employment, housing, and health—inequalities that have appeared even as integration indicators of, in the sense of full membership and participation in society, are confirmed: 71% of immigrants, 94% of children with two immigrant parents, and 98% of children of mixed couples say they feel French, compared to 97% of the population of non-immigrant family background.

For members of the second generation, this feeling of national belonging coexists with attachment to parents’ home country: 75% of the second generation with two immigrant parents, and 46% of those born to a mixed couple, share that attachment.

Likewise, immigrant families tend to use French at home, usually in combination with parents’ native language: 86% of children born to immigrants spoke French with their parents during their childhood; 68% of those who did so also spoke their parents’ language. In a paradox that the book works to clarify, immigrants’ descendants are therefore simultaneously much better integrated into French society (compared to their parents) in terms of cultural practices and feelings of national belonging and more exposed to discrimination on criteria of origin or skin color, and to racism. Moreover, that kind of discrimination also figures in the experience of French citizens from the country’s overseas regions and their metropolitan-France-born descendants.

In addition to analyzing inequalities, the book draws on the expertise of social science researchers, economists, and statisticians to shed light on social mobility dynamics over the three generations? and diverse types of participation in French society, showing how individual trajectories are constructed on the basis of particular combinations of social conditions, migration path, public policies, and personal experiences. 

A scientific tool useful in guiding public debate

Through its detailed documentation of the individual experiences, practices, and social trajectories of immigrants and immigrants’ children and grandchildren and of the population without ties to immigration (termed “the majority population”), the TeO2 survey provides entirely new data of great use in understanding changes in French society. The book’s detailed analyses—made possible by the size and specific composition of the sample together with the quantity of information collected—point up the limitations of over-general or homogenizing approaches to migration questions and reveal by contrast the deformities in many oft-diffused interpretations of cultural diversity in France.  

The researchers have brought to light instead the diversity of trajectories and situations and the lasting effects of social inequalities and discrimination on individual trajectories. The authors conclude by recalling the importance of using robust statistical data: such data are what allow for objectifying public debate and better assessing policies on education, employment, housing, anti-discrimination, and social cohesion.