Labor Mobility of Immigrants: Training, Experience, Language and Opportunities

53 Pages Posted: 9 Aug 2002

See all articles by Sarit Cohen-Goldner

Sarit Cohen-Goldner

Bar-Ilan University - Department of Economics; IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Zvi Eckstein

The Interdisciplinary Center (IDC); Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Date Written: June 2002

Abstract

This paper analyzes the labor mobility and human capital accumulation of male immigrants who moved from the former Soviet Union to Israel. We formulate an estimable dynamic choice model for employment and training in blue and white-collar occupations, where the labor market randomly offered opportunities are affected by past choices. The estimated model well fits the observed patterns of the fast decrease in unemployment as immigrants first find blue-collar jobs and attend training, followed by a gradual movement to white-collar occupations. The estimated rates of return to local training, local experience and local language are very high, but imported skills have zero (conditional) return. Furthermore, the welfare gain from the impact of training on job offer probabilities is larger than it's effect on wages. Due to low job offer rates, the realized rate of return from white-collar training is relatively low and takes time. As a result, the annual aggregate wage growth, due to the availability of training programs, increases with time in Israel to 1.4 percent in the fifth year.

Keywords: Immigration, Occupation, Training, Unemployment, Transitions, Welfare

JEL Classification: J31, J68

Suggested Citation

Cohen-Goldner, Sarit and Eckstein, Zvi, Labor Mobility of Immigrants: Training, Experience, Language and Opportunities (June 2002). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=320087 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.320087

Sarit Cohen-Goldner

Bar-Ilan University - Department of Economics ( email )

Ramat-Gan, 52900
Israel
+972 3 531 8948 (Phone)

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

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

Zvi Eckstein (Contact Author)

The Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) ( email )

P. O. Box 167
Herzliya, 69978, PA Pennsylvania 46150
United States
+972 9 9602706 (Phone)
+972 9 9602758 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://www1.idc.ac.il/Faculty/Eckstein/index.html

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

London
United Kingdom

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

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

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
119
Abstract Views
1,887
Rank
420,404
PlumX Metrics