IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp20.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Portuguese Migrants in the German Labor Market: Performance and Self-Selection

Author

Listed:
  • Bauer, Thomas K.

    (RWI)

  • Pereira, Pedro T.

    (University of Madeira)

  • Vogler, Michael

    (IZA)

  • Zimmermann, Klaus F.

    (University of Bonn)

Abstract

Using a large new dataset, we analyze the labor market performance of Portuguese workers in Germany. While previous work compares wages and characteristics of migrants only to those of the natives, we match the data also with an equivalent survey from the sending country. We find that Portuguese migrants as a whole are negatively selected with the exception of blue-collar workers that are the greatest group among them. The observation that Portuguese migrants earn more than comparable Germans indicates that they have higher unobservable skills. Our results confirm the effectiveness of the German guestworker system

Suggested Citation

  • Bauer, Thomas K. & Pereira, Pedro T. & Vogler, Michael & Zimmermann, Klaus F., 1998. "Portuguese Migrants in the German Labor Market: Performance and Self-Selection," IZA Discussion Papers 20, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp20
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp20.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Schmidt, Christoph M. & Stilz, Anette & Zimmermann, Klaus F., 1994. "Mass migration, unions, and government intervention," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 185-201, October.
    2. Klaus F. Zimmermann, 1995. "Tackling the European Migration Problems," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 45-62, Spring.
    3. Veall, Michael R & Zimmermann, Klaus F, 1994. "Goodness of Fit Measures in the Tobit Model," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 56(4), pages 485-499, November.
    4. Jacob A. Mincer, 1974. "Schooling, Experience, and Earnings," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number minc74-1.
    5. George J. Borjas, 2021. "Self-Selection and the Earnings of Immigrants," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Foundational Essays in Immigration Economics, chapter 4, pages 69-91, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    6. George J. Borjas, 1994. "The Economics of Immigration," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 32(4), pages 1667-1717, December.
    7. Bauer, Thomas & Zimmermann, Klaus F, 1995. "Integrating the East: The Labour Market Effects of Immigration," CEPR Discussion Papers 1235, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Jacob A. Mincer, 1974. "Schooling and Earnings," NBER Chapters, in: Schooling, Experience, and Earnings, pages 41-63, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Bauer Thomas & Zimmermann F., 1996. "Gastarbeiter und Wirtschaftsentwicklung im Nachkriegsdeutschland," Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook, De Gruyter, vol. 37(2), pages 73-108, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. De Coulon, Augustin & Wadsworth, Jonathan, 2008. "On the relative gains to immigration: a comparison of the labour market position of Indians in the USA, the UK and India," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 19634, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Martin Kahanec & Klaus F. Zimmermann, 2008. "Migration and Globalization: Challenges and Perspectives for the Research Infrastructure," RatSWD Working Papers 51, German Data Forum (RatSWD).
    3. Duleep, Harriet & Liu, Xingfei & Regets, Mark, 2018. "Country of Origin, Earnings Convergence, and Human Capital Investment: A New Method for the Analysis of U.S. Immigrant Economic Assimilation," GLO Discussion Paper Series 247, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    4. repec:diw:diwwpp:dp580 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Michael S. Rendall & Susan W. Parker, 2014. "Two Decades of Negative Educational Selectivity of Mexican Migrants to the United States," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 40(3), pages 421-446, September.
    6. Bender, Stefan & Seifert, Wolfgang, 1998. "Lokale Arbeitsmärkte für ausländische Arbeitskräfte in Deutschland : berufliche Veränderungsprozesse am Beispiel dreier idealtypischer Arbeitsmarktregionen (Local labour markets for foreign workers in," Mitteilungen aus der Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 31(4), pages 661-673.
    7. Anzelika Zaiceva, 2006. "Self-Selection and the Returns to Geographic Mobility: What Can Be Learned from the German Reunification "Experiment"," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 580, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    8. Augustin Coulon & Jonathan Wadsworth, 2010. "On the relative rewards to immigration: a comparison of the relative labour market position of Indians in the USA, the UK and India," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 8(1), pages 147-169, March.
    9. Bönke Timm & Neidhöfer Guido, 2018. "Parental Background Matters: Intergenerational Mobility and Assimilation of Italian Immigrants in Germany," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 19(1), pages 1-31, February.
    10. Olga Lazareva & Konstantin Sonin, 2008. "Russian Migrants to Russia: Choice of Location and Labor Market Outcomes," Working Papers w0117, Center for Economic and Financial Research (CEFIR).
    11. Olga Lazareva, 2015. "Russian migrants to Russia: assimilation and local labor market effects," IZA Journal of Migration and Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-25, December.
    12. Bender, Stefan & Seifert, Wolfgang, 1998. "Lokale Arbeitsmärkte für ausländische Arbeitskräfte in Deutschland : berufliche Veränderungsprozesse am Beispiel dreier idealtypischer Arbeitsmarktregionen (Local labour markets for foreign workers in," Mitteilungen aus der Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 31(4), pages 661-673.
    13. Duleep, Harriet & Liu, Xingfei & Regets, Mark, 2014. "Country of Origin and Immigrant Earnings, 1960-2000: A Human Capital Investment Perspective," IZA Discussion Papers 8628, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Augustin de Coulon & Matloob Piracha, 2002. "Self-Selection and the Performance of Return Migrants: The Case of Albania," Studies in Economics 0211, School of Economics, University of Kent.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bonin, Holger, 2017. "The Potential Economic Benefits of Education of Migrants in the EU," IZA Research Reports 75, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Jens Ruhose, 2015. "Microeconometric Analyses on Economic Consequences of Selective Migration," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 61.
    3. Sebastian Gundel & Heiko Peters, "undated". "Assimilation and Cohort Effects for German Immigrants," Working Papers 200123, Institute of Spatial and Housing Economics, Munster Universitary.
    4. George J. Borjas, 2000. "The Economic Progress of Immigrants," NBER Chapters, in: Issues in the Economics of Immigration, pages 15-50, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Steinhardt Max Friedrich, 2011. "The Wage Impact of Immigration in Germany - New Evidence for Skill Groups and Occupations," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 11(1), pages 1-35, June.
    6. Sukanya Basu, 2018. "Age-of-Arrival Effects on the Education of Immigrant Children: A Sibling Study," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 39(3), pages 474-493, September.
    7. Constant, Amelie & Zimmermann, Klaus F., 2005. "Immigrant Performance and Selective Immigration Policy: A European Perspective," National Institute Economic Review, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, vol. 194, pages 94-105, October.
    8. Licht, Georg & Steiner, Viktor, 1993. "Assimilation, labour market experience, and earnings profiles of temporary and permanent immigrant workers in germany," ZEW Discussion Papers 93-06, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    9. Steinhardt, Max Friedrich, 2006. "Arbeitsmarkt und Migration: Eine empirische Analyse der Lohn- und Beschäftigungseffekte der Zuwanderung für Deutschland," HWWI Research Papers 3-4, Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWI).
    10. Green, David A. & Worswick, Christopher, 2012. "Immigrant earnings profiles in the presence of human capital investment: Measuring cohort and macro effects," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 241-259.
    11. Eric A. Hanushek & Jens Ruhose & Ludger Woessmann, 2017. "Knowledge Capital and Aggregate Income Differences: Development Accounting for US States," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 184-224, October.
    12. Robert Gibbons & Lawrence F. Katz & Thomas Lemieux & Daniel Parent, 2005. "Comparative Advantage, Learning, and Sectoral Wage Determination," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 23(4), pages 681-724, October.
    13. Bauer, Thomas K. & Lofstrom, Magnus & Zimmermann, Klaus F., 2000. "Immigration Policy, Assimilation of Immigrants and Natives' Sentiments towards Immigrants: Evidence from 12 OECD-Countries," IZA Discussion Papers 187, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Andres Erosa & Tatyana Koreshkova & Diego Restuccia, 2006. "On the aggregate and distributional implications of productivity differences across countries," Working Paper 06-02, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
    15. Gil S. Epstein, 2013. "Frontier issues of the political economy of migration," Chapters, in: Amelie F. Constant & Klaus F. Zimmermann (ed.), International Handbook on the Economics of Migration, chapter 22, pages 411-431, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Aguayo-Téllez, Ernesto & Muendler, Marc-Andreas & Poole, Jennifer P., 2010. "Globalization and Formal Sector Migration in Brazil," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 840-856, June.
    17. repec:diw:diwwpp:dp460 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Eric A. Hanushek & Jens Ruhose & Ludger Woessmann, 2015. "Economic Gains for U.S. States from Educational Reform," NBER Working Papers 21770, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Bauer, Thomas K. & Zimmermann, Klaus F., 2000. "Immigration Policy in Integrated National Economies," IZA Discussion Papers 170, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Ebner, Christian & Helbling, Marc, 2016. "Social distance and wage inequalities for immigrants in Switzerland," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 30(3), pages 436-454.
    21. Ricardo da Silva Freguglia & Naercio Aquino Menezes Filho, 2008. "The earning losses after migration in Brazil," Anais do XXXVI Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 36th Brazilian Economics Meeting] 200807171352480, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].

    More about this item

    Keywords

    self.selection of migrants; migration policy; portuguese migration; labor market performance of migrants;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:iza:izadps:dp20. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.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.