Immigrants’ spatial incorporation in France : patterns and determinants of neighborhood and housing attainment.

Summary This thesis seeks to analyze the residential dynamics of immigrant populations in France and their housing situation. Based on two large databases, the Permanent Demographic Sample (INSEE) and the Trajectories and Origins survey (INED/INSEE), which are among the few databases in France that make it possible to identify immigrants and their descendants over time (1990-2008), this research has three main empirical components. First, I propose an overview of the residential situations of immigrants and their descendants, focusing on the characteristics of the urban areas where these groups are concentrated, their housing tenure status, and the way these different residential dimensions are articulated. Second, taking advantage of the longitudinal dimension of the data, the analysis focuses on the residential mobility of these groups, tracing their trajectories through neighborhoods and housing. Finally, I conduct an intergenerational analysis of residential inequality to determine the extent to which individuals "inherit" the spatial positions of their parents. The analysis pays particular attention to the individual and contextual determinants of trajectories in order to better understand the mechanisms that structure housing and spatial inequalities.