Glossary
Active: Active, or economically active, refers to people who are in employment or unemployed (see definitions below).
Adjusted rate: Adjusted rates show what outcomes would be for immigrants if their socio-demographic attributes were the same as those of the reference population. Adjustments are made using the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition method and selected attributes are chosen depending on the topic covered.
Economic, Social and Cultural Status (ESCS) index: The social and economic environment of a pupil is a vague concept that is difficult to measure. The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) assesses it through the ESCS index. The variables that it factors in are the education level and occupation of the parents, an estimate of the family’s monetary wealth, and the number and nature of the cultural assets available in the household. Students are considered socially privileged if they belong to the 25% of students with the highest ESCS index. They are considered socially underprivileged if they are among the 25% of students with the lowest ESCS index.
Employed person: The definition of an employed person is that used by the International Labour Organization (ILO). Persons in employment are those who worked at least one hour in the course of the reference week and those who had a job but were absent from work.
EU average: When it is not possible to calculate the EU total, the unweighted EU average is used. It considers each EU country as a single entity with equal weight. The “EU average” is thus the arithmetical average derived from the statistics of the countries whose data are available. When some data are missing, the number of EU countries included in calculations is shown in brackets.
EU migrant: All foreign-born born in an EU or an EFTA country.
EU national: An EU national (or EU foreigner), a notion to be understood in the context of the European Union, is a national from an EU country, not including host-country nationals.
EU national household: An EU-national household is one in which all heads have the nationality of an EU country (other than the host-country nationality), or one in which one head is of an EU nationality and the other is a third-country national.
EU total: The EU total is the summary statistic generally used. It takes differences in population size into account. It is thus the weighted average for EU countries. When some data are missing, the number of EU countries included in calculations is shown in brackets.
European Free Trade Agreement (EFTA): In 2018, the EFTA comprises Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.
European Union: In 2018, the EU comprises Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus1,2, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, Spain, Romania, Slovenia, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
Foreign-born: see Immigrant.
Head of household: Defined differently depending on the data source. The EU Statistics of Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) identifies one or two persons “responsible for the household”. It considers that they are the person(s) owning or renting the accommodation or the person(s) to whom the accommodation is provided if it is provided free. If more than two persons share the responsibility, only the oldest two are registered.
Israeli Labour Force Survey: The head of the household is the one who fills in the household questionnaire. His/her partner (if any) is the second head.
US Current Population Survey: The term “householder” refers to the person (or one of the persons) in whose name the housing unit is owned or rented (maintained) or, if there is no such person, any adult member, excluding roomers, boarders, or paid employees. If the house is owned or rented jointly by a married couple, the householder may be either the husband or the wife.
The concept of head of household is not used in Australia, New Zealand or Canada. Instead, the person with the highest wage and his/her partner (if any) are identified as the head of the household in this publication.
Highly educated person: Person having completed at least the first stage of tertiary education (falling into ISCED groups 5-8).
Host-country language: A language that is one of the official language(s) of the country of residence.
Household: A person who resides alone or two or more people who usually reside together and share facilities (e.g. eating and cooking spaces, bathroom, toilet, and living area).
Immigrant: Person born abroad.
Immigrant household: A household in which all heads (one or two persons) were born abroad. Unlike the 2015 Settling In edition, that concept is not used anymore in living conditions indicators (Chapter 4), which rather use the immigrant concept but only in Chapter 2.
Immigrant who arrived as adults: Immigrant who arrived at the age of 15 or older.
Immigrant who arrived as children: Immigrant who arrived before the age of 15.
Inactive person: A person without work who is not actively seeking or not available for work.
International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED): A classification developed by UNESCO to facilitate comparisons of education statistics and indicators across countries on the basis of uniform and internationally agreed definitions. See http://uis.unesco.org/en/topic/international-standard-classification-education-isced.
International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO): ISCO is a tool developed by the International Labour Organization for organising jobs into a clearly defined set of groups according to the tasks and duties undertaken in the job. It is intended for use in statistical applications and lends itself to international comparisons. http://www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/stat/isco/isco88/.
Labour force: People available for work and who are either employed or unemployed.
Low-educated person: Person having no formal education or no more than a lower-secondary level of education (falling into ISCED groups 0-2).
Migrant background: A person with a migrant background is either born abroad or having at least one parent born abroad.
National household: Household in which at least one head is a host-country national. Unlike the 2015 Settling In edition, that concept is not used anymore in indicators 8.8 and 8.9, which rather use the nationality of the person.
Native-born: Person born in the country of residence.
Native-born household: A household in which at least one head is born in the current country of residence. Native-born households include mixed households, ones in which one of the head was born abroad. Unlike the 2015 Settling In edition, that concept is not used anymore in living conditions indicators (Chapter 4), which rather use the native-born concept.
Native-born with a non-EU background: Native-born with foreign-born parents whose all known parents were born in a non-EU/EFTA country.
Native-born with an EU background: Native-born with foreign-born parents whose at least one parent was born in an EU/EFTA country.
Native-born with foreign-born parents: Person born in the current country of residence to two foreign-born parents, or to one foreign-born parent and one parent which country of birth is unknown.
Native-born with mixed background: Person born in the current country of residence to one native-born and one foreign-born parent.
Native-born with native-born parents: Person born in the current country of residence to two native-born parents, or to one native-born parent and one parent whose country of birth is unknown.
Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics: A classification developed and regulated by the EU to define subdivisions of countries for statistical purposes. There are three NUTS level for each EU country.
See https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/nuts/background.
Non-EU migrant: All immigrants born in a non-EU or non-EFTA country.
OECD average: When it is not possible to calculate the OECD total, the unweighted OECD average is calculated instead. It takes each OECD country as a single entity with equal weight. The “OECD average” is thus the arithmetical mean derived from the statistics of the countries whose data are available. When some data are missing, the number of OECD countries included in calculations is shown in brackets.
OECD total: The OECD total is the summary statistic generally used for OECD countries. It takes differences in population size into account. It is thus the weighted average for OECD countries. When some data are missing, the number of OECD countries included in calculations is shown in brackets.
Ordinary residence: An ordinary residence or dwelling is a place of residence that is not a hostel, group home, retirement home, military barrack, encampment, hospital, or prison.
Recent immigrant: Immigrant who entered the host country within the last five years unless otherwise specified. For some indicators, however, a period of ten years is considered.
Resilient student: A student that the PISA ESCS index considers being from a socially underprivileged family but who performs in the top quartile of all students in the country where they are schooled.
Settled immigrant: Immigrant who has lived in the host country for at least 10 years.
Third country: All countries that are not members of the European Union in 2015. It includes EFTA countries.
Third-country national: A third-country national, a notion to be understood in the context of the European Union, is a national with a nationality from a third country who resides in the European Union.
Unemployed person: A person without work who has been actively seeking work for the last four weeks and would be available for work within two weeks.
Very low-educated person: Person having no formal education or who have completed at best primary education (ISCED Levels 0-1).