Immigration Status, Educational Level, and Perceived Discrimination in Europe

Background: Multiple studies have been conducted to test the moderating effect of immigration on the positive health results yielded through educational attainment. However, no study has been conducted to examine the role of immigration as a moderator in the association between educational level and perceived discrimination in Europe. Aim: We aimed to study whether an inverse association exists between educational level and perceived discrimination in European countries and whether immigration status moderates the association between educational level and perceived discrimination. Methods: Data from the 10th round of the cross-sectional European Social Survey (ESS) were used in this cross-sectional study. A total of 17,596 participants between 15–90 years old who lived in European countries were included. The independent variable was educational level, a categorical variable, and the dependent variable was perceived discrimination. Immigration status was the moderator, and age and sex were confounders. Results: Of 17,596 participants, 16,632 (94.5%) were native-born and 964 were immigrants (5.5%). We found that higher levels of educational level were protective against perceived discrimination, which was also found in immigrant participants; however, the effect was weaker. Conclusions: This study found that educational level was a protective factor against perceived discrimination. This effect, however, was more robust in the native-born participants than in their immigrant counterparts.