Immigrants' Unemployment Drivers: Evidence from Switzerland

Abstract

Immigrant groups, especially those originating from non-European countries, tend to experience disadvantage in the labour market and to be overrepresented among the recipients of welfare benefits. This outcome is sometimes explained with reference to migration-related factors such as weaker work values than natives (i.e., acceptability of remaining on benefits), smaller and lower quality of informal networks and lower levels of psychological well-being. Indeed, we find that these factors significantly influence unemployment duration in the expected direction. However, they explain only a small share of the overall disadvantage that some immigrant groups experience. We conclude that at least some of the large differences we observed in unemployment duration are likely due to discrimination by employers.

Keywords: unemployment; discrimination; nationalitiy; values; networks

JEL Classification: J40