This study contributes to the literature on immigrants' perceived discrimination in two ways. First, while earlier work focused on personal or group-level discrimination, this paper develops and tests a theory of perceived societal discrimination, i.e., immigrants' perceptions of how prevalent different types of discrimination are in their society. Importantly, immigrants’ views of societal discrimination encompass ‘out-group empathy’, i.e., beliefs about the frequency with which out-groups experience discrimination. Second, whereas existing literature relied on single-country designs, this study provides a cross-national examination, offering insights into the effects of country-level conditions on perceived discrimination. Based on survey data from 12,000 first- and second-generation immigrants in 17 European countries, results show differences between minority groups, with Muslim immigrants perceiving higher religious discrimination and black immigrants being more attuned to skin color discrimination in society. The study further reveals a positive association between immigrant integration and perceived societal discrimination. Evidence suggests that this ‘integration paradox’ holds for both Muslim and non-Muslim immigrants, black and non-black immigrants, and also for Muslim immigrants who wear traditional religious clothing and those who don't. Finally, the study supports the ‘Tocqueville paradox,’ indicating that in countries with more extensive anti-discrimination laws, the relationship between integration and perceived societal discrimination is amplified.

ABSTRACT Although Christian migrant groups make up a sizeable part of the immigrant population in Europe, little is known about their religiosity. This paper studies patterns of intergenerational change and proposes and tests hypotheses that specify when and why changes across generations are stronger. Using data from the European Social Survey (2002–2018) on 33 European countries, it is found that there is a strong pattern of intergenerational decline in the level of religiosity among Christian migrant groups in Europe. This process of religious decline is by no means universal. Results show that children from two foreign-born parents are much more religious than children from intermarried (foreign-born and native) couples. We also observe that intergenerational decline is much less pronounced in European countries that are more religious. Finally, when Christian migrant groups belong to a religious minority group, this is associated with higher levels of religiosity in both the first and second generation. It is argued that these insights can explain the ‘puzzling’ strong intergenerational religious transmission among Muslim migrant groups in Western European societies.