Human capital background and the educational attainment of the second-generation immigrants in France

In this paper, we study the impact of the human capital background on ethnic educational gaps between second-generation immigrants in France. First, we show that the skill of immigrants explains the main part of the ethnic educational gap between their children. More precisely, if the education of immigrants has a predominant impact on the educational attainment of their children, their assimilation degree, essentially captured by their French fluency or their length of stay in France, also contributes to explain ethnic educational gaps. Secondly, we show that the impact of the immigrants' education on the educational attainment of their children depends on their country of origin, their place of schooling as well as their French proficiency.