Career Trajectories of Foreign-born Workers in Europe: a Retrospective Study Using SHARELIFE Data

In Europe, migration flows are often related to work reasons. For some countries with tight and/or aging labor markets and facing long-term hiring difficulties in specific sectors, recruiting foreign-born employees could be a promising solution in the coming years. However, improving the professional integration of these migrants remains a big challenge. To better understand the mechanisms of this integration, we focus on the career trajectories of foreign-born workers based on the European survey SHARE. Thanks to the retrospective SHARELIFE component of this survey, it is possible to reconstruct professional careers year by year. We reach several interesting conclusions using the sequence analysis methodology and descriptive indicators suited to studying individual trajectories. Our results confirm a greater complexity of migrant careers compared to natives. This complexity either takes the form of greater precarity (low-skilled or episodic employment) or results from more frequent upward transitions, especially for migrants from OECD countries. Thus, although migrant workers often experience overqualification for their first job, a form of catch-up seems possible. Finally, it should be noted that the careers of second-generation migrants (whose parents were both born abroad) no longer significantly differ from natives, which indicates successful long-term integration.