Cyprus tops Eurostat charts for tertiary educational attainment of persons aged 25-54 in the EU Member States, by migration status and origin, for 2014, with an unmatched 62.3% of second generation immigrants attaining tertiary education.

At the same time 39% of first generation immigrants also attained tertiary education, surpassed only by Bulgaria (42.5%) and Poland (56.9%). The corresponding rate in the native population is 44.7%, second only to Finland`s (46%).

Nevertheless, according to the same Eurostat data, employment rates of persons aged 25-54 in the EU Member States, by migration status and origin, 2014, as % of the total resident population in the corresponding age group, Cyprus is well below EU average, employing 77.1% of the native population, 75.0% of second generation immigrants and 75.9% of first generation immigrants.

Eurostat states that the immigrant population characteristics of second generation immigrants in the EU, show that generally they are well integrated into the labour marke and they are have high educational attainment.

In 2014, 82.4% (or 251.7 million individuals) of the EU population aged 15-64 were native born with native background, 11.5% (36.5 million) were foreign-born and 6.1% (18.4 million) were considered as second generation immigrants, as 4.4% (13.3 million) had at least one parent born in the EU and 1.7% (5.1 million) had both parents born outside the EU. Among the EU Member States for which data are available the highest proportions of second generation immigrants in the total resident population were registered in Estonia (21.4%), Latvia (19.1%), Luxembourg (16.2%), France (14.3%), Sweden (11.2%), Belgium (11.0%), Slovenia (10.6%) and Croatia (10.3%).

CNA/THA/ΜΜ/2016