IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/zbw/espost/178613.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Ethnic inequality in retirement income: a comparative analysis of immigrant-native gaps in Western Europe

Author

Listed:
  • Heisig, Jan Paul
  • Lancee, Bram
  • Radl, Jonas

Abstract

Previous research unequivocally shows that immigrants are less successful in the labour market than the native-born population. However, little is known about whether ethnic inequality persists after retirement. We use data on 16 Western European countries from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC, 2004–2013) to provide the first comparative study of ethnic inequalities among the population aged 65 and older. We focus on the retirement income gap (RIG) between immigrants from non-European Union countries and relate its magnitude to country differences in welfare state arrangements. Ethnic inequality after retirement is substantial: after adjusting for key characteristics including age, education and occupational status, the average immigrant penalty across the 16 countries is 28 per cent for men and 29 per cent for women. Country-level regressions show that income gaps are smaller in countries where the pension system is more redistributive. We also find that easy access to long-term residence is associated with larger RIGs, at least for men. There is no clear evidence that immigrants’ access to social security programmes, welfare state transfers to working-age households or the strictness of employment protection legislation affect the size of the RIG

Suggested Citation

  • Heisig, Jan Paul & Lancee, Bram & Radl, Jonas, 2018. "Ethnic inequality in retirement income: a comparative analysis of immigrant-native gaps in Western Europe," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 38(10), pages 1963-1994.
  • Handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:178613
    DOI: 10.1017/S0144686X17000332
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/178613/1/f-20577-full-text-Heisig-et_al-Inequality-v3.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1017/S0144686X17000332?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Platt, Lucinda & Polavieja, Javier & Radl, Jonas, 2022. "Which integration policies work? The heterogeneous impact of national institutions on immigrants’ labor market attainment in Europe," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 110955, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Platt, Lucinda & Polavieja, Javier & Radl, Jonas, 2022. "Which Integration Policies Work? The Heterogeneous Impact of National Institutions on Immigrants’ Labor Market Attainment in Europe," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 56(2), pages 344-375.
    3. Gustafsson, Björn Anders & Mac Innes, Hanna & Österberg, Torun, 2017. "Older People in Sweden Without Means: On the Importance of Age at Immigration for Being 'Twice Poor'," IZA Discussion Papers 11144, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Gustafsson, Björn Anders & Jakobsen, Vibeke & Mac Innes, Hanna & Pedersen, Peder J. & Österberg, Torun, 2021. "Older Immigrants' New Poverty Risk in Scandinavian Welfare States?," IZA Discussion Papers 14882, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:178613. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zbwkide.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.