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Decomposing immigrant wage assimilation - the role of workplaces and occupations

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  • Eliasson, Tove

    (Uppsala Center for Labor Studies)

Abstract

This article uses a matched employer-employee panel data of the Swedish labor market to study immigrant wage assimilation, decomposing the wage catch-up into parts which can be attributed to relative wage growth within and between workplaces and occupations. This study shows that failing to control for selection into employment when studying wage assimilation of immigrants is very likely to under-estimate wage catch-up. The results further show that both poorly and highly educated immigrants catch up through relative wage growth within workplaces and occupations, suggesting that employer-specific learning plays an important role for the wage catch-up. The highly educated suffers from not beneting from occupational mobility as much as the natives do. This could be interpreted as a lack of access to the full range of occupations, possibly explained by diffculties in signaling specific skills.

Suggested Citation

  • Eliasson, Tove, 2013. "Decomposing immigrant wage assimilation - the role of workplaces and occupations," Working Paper Series, Center for Labor Studies 2013:6, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:uulswp:2013_006
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    2. Carl Lin, 2016. "How Do Immigrants From Taiwan Fare In The U.S. Labor Market?," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 61(05), pages 1-38, December.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Firm sorting; occupational mobility; wage assimilation; host country specific human capital; employer learning;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing

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