Are There Gender and Country of Origin Differences in Immigrant Labor Market Outcomes Across European Destinations?

45 Pages Posted: 16 Dec 2004

See all articles by Alícia Adserà

Alícia Adserà

Princeton University - Princeton School of Public and International Affairs; Princeton University - Office of Population Research (OPR); IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Barry R. Chiswick

University of Illinois at Chicago; IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Date Written: December 2004

Abstract

The paper uses the 1994-2000 waves of the European Community Household Panel to conduct a systematic analysis of the earnings of immigrants as compared to native workers, in particular to test whether there is any systematic variation in the labor market performance of immigrants across gender related to duration in the destination, schooling, age at immigration, country of origin, or country of destination. We find a significant negative effect of immigrant status on individual earnings of around 40% at the time of arrival in the pooled sample, although the difference is somewhat smaller for women. Those differences, however, vary greatly across countries with migrants in Germany and Portugal faring best relative to natives, and those in Sweden, Denmark, Luxembourg or Spain the worst, particularly among non-EU born migrants. Gender differences are more important among those born outside the European Union, with women doing relatively better than men. Among men, those from Asia, Latin-America and Eastern Europe receive the lowest earnings. Latin-American and Eastern European women are at the bottom of the women's distribution. Earnings increase with duration in the destination and the foreign born "catch-up" to the native born, others variables being the same, at around 18 years in the destination among both men and women. Education matters more for women in terms of explaining earnings, whereas language skills are relatively more important for men.

Keywords: immigrants, earnings, gender, countries of birth and destination, language

JEL Classification: J1, J61, F22

Suggested Citation

Adsera, Alicia and Chiswick, Barry R., Are There Gender and Country of Origin Differences in Immigrant Labor Market Outcomes Across European Destinations? (December 2004). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=636662 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.636662

Alicia Adsera (Contact Author)

Princeton University - Princeton School of Public and International Affairs ( email )

Princeton University
Princeton, NJ 08544

Princeton University - Office of Population Research (OPR) ( email )

200 Wallace Hall
NJ 08544
United States

IZA Institute of Labor Economics ( email )

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Barry R. Chiswick

University of Illinois at Chicago ( email )

601 S. Morgan Street, Room 2103UH
Chicago, IL 60607-7121
United States
312-996-2683 (Phone)
312-996-3344 (Fax)

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

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