Residential segregation and occupational status of immigrant descendants in France.

Summary The objective of this thesis is to shed quantitative empirical light on the phenomena of discrimination against the descendants of immigrants in the labor market and the residential segregation of immigrants on French territory. The main results are as follows. The wage gap between French people of French parents and those of African parents is almost entirely explained by a human capital gap between the two groups. Conversely, these differences in human capital do not explain the large gap in employment probability. When controlling for the influence of place of residence, the unexplained component of the employment gap decreases but remains substantial. This thesis also provides results on the location, geographic concentration and residential segregation of immigrants and their children. In particular, a method for decomposing wage gaps that takes selection into account as well as a method for decomposing employment gaps that takes place of residence into account are proposed. A new method for correcting the bias of segregation indices using units with few observations is also introduced and validated. Finally, a non-parametric kernel estimation method is used to compute the local proportion of a minority in the territory. A concentration index using directly these estimated proportions is also developed.