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Wage and Employment Effects of Immigration: Evidence from Korea

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  • Hyejin Kim

    (Economic Research Institute, Bank of Korea)

Abstract

This paper studies the impact of immigration on native labor market outcomes in Korea. We exploit the variation in immigration flows in an education-experience cell and find that, on average, immigration has no harmful effect on the wages or employment of native workers. However, there is great heterogeneity in the wage effects across education groups: high school dropouts suffer from the adverse effects, whereas the effects for college graduates are positive. We find the potential explanation for these differential effects in the suggestive evidence on the degree of substitution. Specifically, we examine the similarity of occupational distribution between natives and immigrants. While the least-educated natives and immigrants have almost identical occupation distributions, highly educated natives are likely to work in different occupational segments from the corresponding immigrants.

Suggested Citation

  • Hyejin Kim, 2020. "Wage and Employment Effects of Immigration: Evidence from Korea," Working Papers 2020-30, Economic Research Institute, Bank of Korea.
    • Handle: RePEc:bok:wpaper:2030
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Immigration; Wages; Employment; Occupational Segmentation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers

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