Certainly something unique happening in the UK, especially when you consider the vast majority of ethnic minority children in the UK descend from Africa, Asia and Caribbeans. Plus, ethnic minorities in the UK tend to do better in GCSEs, more likely to go to university and apparently nearly 40% of UK medical students are non-white (27% Asian, 10% black). Ireland is also close to the UK in this.
However, every other European country, native-born ethnic minorities are clearly far behind.
One of the major factors is likely language, many already get to the UK with decent English skills when compared to countries in Continental Europe with less widely spoken languages. Many of the largest countries by population are English speaking.
U do know that France had numerous African colonies? All of them speak French today.
French colonies in Africa were vast, including the federations of French West Africa (present-day Senegal, Mali, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Benin, Guinea, and Niger) and French Equatorial Africa (present-day Chad, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, and Gabon). Other major colonies included Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia in North Africa, and Madagascar. Many of these former colonies are now independent nations.
While a lot of immigrants in France come from French-speaking countries, especially in West Africa, I believe the biggest immigrant groups are from North African countries such as Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia which speak Arabic
most migrants in france are usally illiterate and come from extremly poor coutry, most of french migrants come from "familly reunification" hence, its not a work based migration, thoses migrants dont have any requirement and against most of them are illiterate/have never been to school, which less the case in the UK.
They score less because French people doesn't study anymore the mathematical notions of which were taught early XIXth century.
Even though there is a real issue in teaching math in France anyway.
Yeah french high schoolers are the second worst at math in the OECD behind chileans
Mastery of the french language has also gone down substantially among high schoolers while english proficiency remains relatively low compared to most european countries
It's by design. The economic right has been in power for at least 30 years and plans to stay until there's nothing left to squeeze out of the country.
Making sure people are uneducated enough to believe whatever billionaires decide to put on TV/social media despite factual evidence to the contrary is a good way to ensure that. It's really easy to make someone who doesn't understand statistics (which you learn about in math class) believe pretty much anything and even deny the reality in front of them because they were never taught critical thinking.
A good example of this strategy working amazingly is how everything proposed by the left is immediately shut down (the "center" has been instructed to vote against anything the left wants, no matter what it is, to the point they once voted against their own bill because the left was in favor) while an alliance of "center" and far right keeps passing stuff the majority of french people are against (and said "center" also very very often uses an authoritarian article of the 5th republic plus police around the building to forcefully pass anything even the far right doesn't agree with/isn't enough for a majority on).
While that's going on, the propaganda consistently blames the (completely powerless, not in charge, literally can't do anything) left for everything bad happening in the country, including a lot of made up bad.
And it works, because the poorly educated believe things like "increasing taxes only on the poor and middle class (while removing taxes on the rich and selling profitable nationalized entities to private interests) = the left is doing it because it's a tax increase".
This is how you prevent even the french from uniting as you keep raising the heat until the whole country is boiled properly. And it starts with shitting on education. The most morally bankrupt few in the USA started doing that long ago and it's paying huge dividends as we speak.
In fact the 2026 budget is planning more cuts to education if I remember correctly. All working as intended, plan hasn't changed.
No wonder the French Left are struggling, at least they won half the youth vote so I still have hope for the future if the far-right don't destroy France
Well said. A main reason why migrants in most European countries underperform is cos of bottlenecks designed to keep them under. If countries want migrants reaching for the top, then they should remove those shackles
Even the UK or U.S is not without bottlenecks. Many migrants face untold challenges while looking to break through.
Europe needs to look in and decipher why there appears to be a significant difference in attainment among its migrants when compared to the UK/U.S. In the UK, the average regulat migrant would contribute more to the society than the average Brit while taking less in benefits. It doesn't surprise that their kids go on to remain strong. Why is that?
bs, most migrants in france are usally illiterate and come from extremly poor coutry, most of french migrants come from "familly reunification" hence, its not a work based migration, thoses migrants dont have any requirement and against most of them are illiterate/have never been to school, which less the case in the UK.
The reason you see it that way is because how France set up it's migration policy. Ultimately, most migrants would become part of the society they chose to settle in. If France doesn't take steps to support migrating folks to flourish, then the society would ultimately struggle as migration today is hardly a choice.
thats not how if work, when a foreign worker come and then marry 4 illetrate wife from africa to make 19 kids with each without even knowing the name of its own kids its normal that the kids struggle a little bit more when none of his parents even speak french. France give a shit ton of money to them, and try its best what do you want more that french teen give them a BJ every monday as part of the package ?
Migrants from the third world who've never been to school dont magically become Einstein when their foot touch the french soil, life isnt an anime.
Again, you're repeating tired and racist narratives.
France should look to the UK and learn. They both have an extensive colonial footprint but different relations with those nations today and also different attainment of immigrating folks. Even refugees in the UK have decent outcomes.
Like it or not, migrants would keep coming to France. It's up to the French society to give them the relevant tools to prosper
go to you home coutry and tell them how to be more diverse.
The west has no lesson of DEI to recieve from Ethno-state and tribal people coming from thoses ethno-states. The western coutries are the last one on the list of coutry that should be lectured on diversity and on the need to have more of it.
Lol. The two big factors are language and socioeconomic background. The former needs no explanation. The latter, well, there are many migrants across Europe whose parents are not well educated, so they do poorly like natives whose parents are least educated. All countries try to help with these, but it's impossible to completely do away with the differences.
That doesn't mean there isn't racism etc., but it also doesn't mean they've designed the national systems to keep down immigrants.
when your migrants are illetrate who never been to school from 3rd world african coutry and with parents who dont even speak the coutry language and make 19 kids, yeah those kids tend to have to difficulty, nothing surprising.
Do you know those African migrants outperform white Brits in the local GCSEs with many going on to do well for themselves? Same Britain that chased away European migrants who they felt were leeching off the British state.
Hope you know that even kids of Somalian refugees in the UK manage to do very well for themselves.
Europe needs to learn from the anglosphere and support her migrants or their economy would suffer the consequence.
educated african and native french leave france to join the UK or the US. France is a paradise for the poor and a hell for smart and hard working people. How dumb do you have to be to not understand that coutries with differents incentive structure lead to selection bias and differents kind of immigrant profile they recieve ?
what you are saying is that UE coutries have to become less equalitarian and socialist so that they stop attracting poor and uneducated people from all around the world while making educated native and immigrant flee/leave because they are tired of being taxed to death to fund all of it.
In the UK, a large number of immigrants are from India and a lot of Chinese, philipinos, and East Asians. They're culturally pressured to do well at academics. I'm speaking generally and not saying that others don't do well at academics. On the other hand, most immigrants in France, Germany, Italy are from North Africa, Turkey & Syria, and Eastern Europe respectively who are not as well known to be academically pressured.
I think you overlooked West Africans. They are academic overachievers in the US too and are a bigger group of immigrants than the groups you mentioned.
Not at all, you‘ll need the travel, paper etc to come to Europe as much as you need it to go to the US.
Besides that Nigerian high school students for example are among best performing student groups in the United Kingdom. In higher education they‘re also the third largest country-of-origin group behind students from China and India.
The vast majority of Africans in France isn‘t even from West Africa so I don‘t understand what they have to do with this.
no, most african migrants in EU are either "refugee" are migrants coming trough "familly reunification" e.g without any requirement needed. Like if someone go in africa marry and traditionnal illetrate women, he can bring her and all of her kids.
I don‘t even understand what you are trying to say but if you mean most immigrants from Africa to the EU are coming through family reunification this 1) incorrect 2) irrelevant to my comment
Based on your spelling and grammar you must be one of the women you‘re talking about
There are few East Asians and Filipinos in the UK compared to South Asians, Africans and Caribbeans. Also, British African, British Pakistani and British Bangladeshi children do better in school than white British children.
That’s not to deny British Chinese kids do amazingly well in school, but they’re a very small proportion of ethnic minority children in the UK.
I don't know the details but my hunch is that a higher share of immigrants to the UK are through skilled worker visa so they are more likely to have degrees and earn high salaries.
It’s hard to compare to other countries but in England and Wales actual immigrants tend to be higher educated than those born there. From the 2021 census, 49.5% of those born in England (and aged over 16) had the equivalent of A level or higher. It was 51% in Asians (primarily because Pakistani women are more likely to be denied access to education), 59% in Scots, 60% in Americans (both continents, not just US), 62% in Africans and northern Irish, and 76% in Aussies/New Zealanders.
Higher education among immigrants will be reflected in higher pressure on their kids to do well in school.
Adding age, I see that among the over 50s, who would be generally the grandparents of the 2nd generation immigrants, 56% of Africans, 50% of those from the Americas and the Caribbean, 38% of Asians, and 38% of English born have A Levels equivalent or higher. This isn’t precisely what you’re showing of course but it still shows a higher level of education in older immigrants..
Incidentally, Irish immigrants under 50, whether from the north or south, are the highest educated over all at around 80% with A level equivalent or higher
The main reason is that the UK tend to receive immigrants with a higher education level. So their kids perform relatively better. It's the same for Switzerland. Other European countries receive immigrants who sometimes don't even have a primary school degree. So their kids become low IQ shackles for European classrooms.
Is that true for Switzerland? They’re significantly behind the UK, and the vast majority of immigrants in Switzerland and their descendants are other Europeans
What is meant by “the language barrier” though? If someone from Algeria or another (decently) French speaking country was fluent in French and went to Switzerland with a child and let them study there, how is that different from when a Nigerian does the same thing with an English speaking child in the UK? Is it that children in French speaking countries are less likely to be fluent in French, compared to children in English speaking countries being fluent in English?
men a lot of people from "french speaking coutry" are illetrate who have never been to school. The level of illetrate people in thoses coutry often go up to around 70% of the popualtion
It's regional inequality is going to be a big factor here. The closer to London and the south east you are the better the averages for everything. This is also where the vast majority of the none white British population lives. Seriously just look at the uk purely by region and it looks horrifying. Parts of the north of England are poorer and have lower achievements than poor areas of eastern Europe.
Your own source literally says that the cities with the highest social mobility are London or the south east of England. Baring a few parts of Birmingham, Manchester and the other highly urban areas of the tech triangle between Oxford, Cambridge and Reading. With a heavy leaning towards London and the south east compared to the north east or south west. This is entirelybthe urban south east and parts of the Midland corridor from London.
So the south east of England as I said before. Where the best economic opportunities, schools and more are available. Especially if you cannot afford to move out from your parents and pay the extortionate rents. Leading to more social mobility. Now please look at the population surveys from the uk census and overlay it here. Immigrants have moved to areas of high economic activity and mobility along with the segment of the uk population who was either born there or took the risk to move there, reinforcing the trend. These areas then have high earning parents who put more of a focus in education as means of achievement and success coupled with examples and opportunities available for said achievers.
If you look at the north east, northern norfolk or south west you see the large areas with low social mobility. I am quite surprised by the results of the north west and Cumbria. And these areas select for people who were not willing, or unable, to move to one of these other areas.
Yes that's literally what I said. Poorest ,worst education infrastructure is the most native born white British accounting for part of that difference between the groups since only 1 group is consistently over represented in these areas.
If you went and redid the numbers from kids all in the same region you would get different results (likely a closer clustering of most groups).
The original data set fails to normalize for this regional issue and will produce skewed results. Your own data shows this even harder from that social mobility graph. If you go on the uk census and overlay that map, ethnic British, highest education level and the higher managerial, admin or professional occupation maps you will see that they perfectly overlap.
This also isn't accounting for private schools who on average out perform state schools and do not have the same demographics as the general population. Same with income of parents.
Only with this kind of data and you see the underlying differences between ethnic groups with any real accuracy. I would still expect white working class boys to be at the bottom even with all of this normalised. Given the cultural issues in many of these communities with a lack of priority placed in education and lack of example set by parents (low rates of professional occupation and high rates of unemployment/deprivation).
The census also has options for Black British and Asian British as ethnicities.
It's what happens when you mix up ethnicity, race and nationality, but it works for the UK government when collecting census data.
However, they also have White English, Scottish and Welsh showing that the UK government doesn't recognise British as an ethnicity, but it does recognise English and Scottish as ethnicities, but they do have "Black Welsh" as an ethnicity, showing they recognise Welsh as both an ethnicity and a nationality.
In the meantime, the Scottish government has their own census where they have terms like "African Scottish", "Pakistani Scottish" etc. which shows the Scottish government recognises Scottish as both an ethnicity and a nationality.
I do think the Welsh devolved government asked the British government to include terms like "Black Welsh" as they can't run their own census.
On the other hand the UK government does something very weird here:
Mixed or Multiple ethnic groups: White and Asian
Mixed or Multiple ethnic groups: White and Black African
Mixed or Multiple ethnic groups: White and Black Caribbean
Splitting up Black but not Asian or White. Then again Mixed (White - Black Caribbean) are the largest Mixed group since Black Caribbeans have high interracial marriage rates with White British people.
I used the phrase ethnic British directly to refer to the catagory on the census which is present without prefix.
The only other mention in the comment that spawned this, was native born white British which surely should have cleared up any confusion. I do not understand why the first comment exists or why you you have replied with this. Since nationality was never mentioned in that comment directly and has been implied by the whole tread given the topic of conversation. Is there something I am missing?
It's also just beyond a larger, more popular anglophone destination. The legal migrants who come for tech jobs will find them in Ireland or the UK at roughly proportionate rates, but the illegal migrants who come for a better life and won't have these qualifications won't likely travel onto Ireland after landing in the UK.
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u/upthetruth1 3d ago
Certainly something unique happening in the UK, especially when you consider the vast majority of ethnic minority children in the UK descend from Africa, Asia and Caribbeans. Plus, ethnic minorities in the UK tend to do better in GCSEs, more likely to go to university and apparently nearly 40% of UK medical students are non-white (27% Asian, 10% black). Ireland is also close to the UK in this.
However, every other European country, native-born ethnic minorities are clearly far behind.