A multi-level puzzle: contextual determinants of the discrimination paradox in Europe

Abstract

An increasing body of research has found evidence for a discrimination paradox, the finding that higher educated migrants perceive more discrimination. Knowledge is limited, however, with regards to its omnipresence across the multicultural societies of Europe. Therefore, the present research assesses the generalizability of the discrimination paradox and investigates its context dependency for both personal and societal perceived discrimination. To this end, we present a series of macro-level factors that may aggravate the discrimination paradox. Employing the EU-MIDIS II data, we investigate the discrimination paradox for first- and second-generation migrants across nineteen EU-countries. Multilevel analyses conducted using these large-scale survey data show that the discrimination paradox is to a large extent a Western European and Scandinavian phenomenon. In Southern Europe, Poland and Slovenia, there is little evidence for such a paradox. This research moreover finds that compared to lower educated migrants, higher educated migrants perceive more discrimination on an individual level in countries with certain characteristics. Namely, in countries with lower levels of migrant overqualification, and in countries with a lower social distance towards immigrants, higher educated migrants tend to perceive more personal discrimination. These novel findings bring to light so-far uncovered conditions under which a discrimination paradox is more likely to be observed.