Luxembourg as an Immigration Success Story: The Grand Duchy in Pan-European Perspective

The literature on comparative immigration policy is full of studies of policy disasters. Such works show policymakers what to avoid, yet those individuals responsible for formulating and implementing immigration laws often lack examples of what they should be doing instead. That said, although about 64 percent of the labor force and 44 percent of the population of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is composed of non-citizens, public support for immigration is the highest in the European Union outside of Scandinavia, anti-immigrant violence is rare, and no politically influential anti-immigrant, far-right political party exists.

Luxembourg as an Immigration Success Story: The Grand Duchy in Pan-European Perspective, by Joel S. Fetzer, provides an in-depth examination of Luxembourg’s impressive success in this particular arena. Based on personal interviews with Luxembourg’s government officials, immigration scholars, ordinary immigrants, and human-rights activists. Fetzer first documents the Grand Duchy’s praiseworthy integration of the foreign-born, and then compares Luxembourg’s situation with that of other European Union countries in order to test corresponding explanations for this success.

The study concludes that Luxembourg’s enviable experience with immigration can be primarily explained by its robust economy, relatively egalitarian income distribution, cultural similarity between native Luxembourgers and the predominately Portuguese and Italian immigrants, low levels of residential segregation, and pro-immigration consensus among the country’s leaders.