The issue of immigration into the advanced industrial states is of fundamental importance to our futures as democracies. The forces of the global economy have over the past generation given opportunities to ambitious and sometimes destitute people of poor countries to improve their life chances in the West. Yet these waves of immigration have been challenging to the native populations, many of whom see the immigrants as cultural and economic threats. Perhaps the most challenging situation for the incorporation of immigrants, especially in Europe, is that of Muslim migrants.
In light of this social and political concern, this research project seeks to measure whether there is a Muslim disadvantage in economic mobility and socio-political integration for immigrant families into Europe; and if there is such a disadvantage, to determine its cause. That the social and political relations between Europe and the Muslim world are politically fractious underlines the importance of this project. It will focus on France, the European country with the largest population of people of Muslim origin (estimated to be about five million). More specifically, the project raises two research questions: Do Muslim immigrants and their descendants face greater hurdles integrating into European societies than they would have faced were they alike on all other factors but were non-Muslim? If they do face greater hurdles, what causes the differences and what sustains them?
To answer these questions, the project addresses one fundamental methodological problem that has held back past researchers from answering these questions convincingly, and then employs three distinct research tools to provide answers to these questions. The methodological problem is that it is hard to isolate a "Muslim" effect when (in France) nearly all Muslims are North Africans. To overcome this, the project focuses on two immigrant groups from Senegal, each of which is split between Catholics and Muslims. The only difference between these immigrant groups is religion, allowing the project to infer that systematic differences between these sub-groups in economic or social advancement in France can only be explained by their religious differences. The project will employ ethnographic immersion, targeted public opinion surveys, and a range of field experiments to measure any "Muslim" effect and to determine whether the effect is due to in-group processes (such as treatment of women) or out-group discrimination.
Attacks in Madrid (March 2004) and London (July 2005), and the riots in suburban Paris in November 2005 and November 2007, have all been attributed to "Muslims," and political parties in Europe have mobilized opinion against a Muslim threat to Europe. Relations between the countries of the European Union and the Muslim world have therefore become politically consequential-foreign policy in regard to the Middle East; new membership into the EU; and the vast migration of Muslim populations into EU states. This research project allows for an assessment of a discernible difficulty for Muslim migrants integrating into European society with a perspective that can improve public policy in regard to these immigrants, easing their incorporation.
