The Pros And Cons Of Postcolonial Immigrants In France

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In examining postcolonial immigrants’ integration into French economic life, it is important to note that these populations settling in France in recent decades have been doing so in a context of high unemployment, fitful growth, and major economic restructuring. Thus, it can be argued that the opportunities for effective socio-economic integration may have been far more restricted than in earlier periods. However, even in the context of French economic insecurity, the socio-economic disadvantage that postcolonial immigrant groups and their descendants, especially of North African origin, have found themselves in is extremely marked in comparison to those of the 'majority ethnic population' and immigrant groups of European origin. Some explanation …show more content…

James Cohen argues that the ‘souring’ of the labor market in the second half of the 1970s and almost relentless rise in unemployment has made the process of social incorporation extremely difficult for postcolonial immigrants. Prior to this period, first-generation members of minority ethnic groups experienced relatively high degrees of functional incorporation into the booming post-war labor market, but the descendants of these postcolonial immigrants have been reaching adulthood in very different circumstances, and although unemployment is particularly high among most young people in France, minority ethnic groups, of which postcolonial immigrants are a part, have been particularly badly hit. By 1990, for example, 40% of industrial jobs held by immigrant workers in 1975 had been eliminated. In addition, rising oil prices in 1973, subsequent inflation, and a general decline in the competitiveness of many French firms contributed to a rapid loss of low-skilled industrial jobs, leading to a rise not only in overall unemployment, but in unemployment especially among postcolonial immigrants, making it more difficult to integrate into French socio-economic

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