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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess how wages of US native workers with various educational backgrounds are affected by immigration. Design/methodology/approach – This paper estimates the responses of these workers' wages to the concentration of immigrants with various educational backgrounds in their local labour markets, using 1980-2000 US Census data and instrumental variables approach. Findings – Wages of native high school dropouts fall slightly in the presence of immigrant high school dropouts and high school graduates; wages of native high school graduates fall slightly in the presence of immigrant high school graduates, but rise in the presence of immigrants with higher levels of education; wages of native workers with some college education fall slightly with larger concentrations of immigrant high school graduates but rise slightly with larger concentrations of immigrant college graduates; and there is no evidence that wages of native college graduates are affected by immigration. Originality/value – No previous studies have considered these possibilities when assessing the impact of immigration on native workers' wages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – Much of the literature on immigrants' cash-welfare benefits use has focused on countries with a large tradition of receiving immigrants and with well-established welfare states. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to this literature by analyzing differences in cash-welfare benefits receipt between immigrants and natives and their determinants in Spain, a country with a small level of social assistance and a welfare state heavily reliant on conditioned access to pensions; and an unprecedented immigration boom. Design/methodology/approach – Different probit models of social program intake are estimated for immigrants and native-born individuals using pooled cross-sectional data from the 1999 to 2009 Spanish Labor Force Survey (LFS). Findings – Results show that a negative residual welfare gap exists and that it is mainly driven by recently arrived immigrants, whose legal status or insufficient contribution is likely to hamper participation in social programs. In addition, it is found that immigrants with more than five years in the host country are more likely to receive unemployment benefits than natives, consistent with findings in other countries. These findings hold, regardless of immigrants' continent of origin. Research limitations/implications – Return migration related (or not) to an amnesty may be worrisome, as both return migration and under-reporting of immigrants may generate deterministic biases in an analysis. Although the direction of the biases caused by return migration is not always obvious, sensitivity analysis has been undertaken to evaluate the extent of this problem by comparing the population sizes for the different entry cohorts of immigrants at each LFS. While there is some variation in sizes across LFS, no clear pattern is observed that would raise major concerns of return migration (as there are no regular patterns for decreases in cohort sizes). Nonetheless, for this to be a problem, it needs to generate a deterministic bias in any analysis. Analyzing the demographic characteristics of the different cohorts of immigrants at each of the different LFSs only reveals small changes across surveys; in essence, the socio-demographic characteristics of the cohort remain quite stable across surveys, implying that no deterministic bias would emerge in an analysis. Originality/value – The paper highlights the relevance of accounting for cohort of arrival in the host country, especially when welfare benefits are based on workers' contribution. Indeed, failure to account for this would lead to the conclusion that immigrants are less likely to receive unemployment insurance (UI) benefits than natives. However, once cohort of arrival is included as a covariate, this paper finds that the lower UI intake is explained by the most recent immigrants, as their legal status and lower contributions hamper participation in social programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyse the effect of an increase in the relative supply of immigrants on natives' task reallocation, with a focus on Germany. Specifically, it investigates whether natives, as a response to increased immigration, re-specialise in communication-intensive occupations, where they arguably have a comparative advantage due to language proficiency. Design/methodology/approach: The analysis uses regional data from the German Labour Force Survey between 2002 and 2014. To derive data on job tasks requirements, it employs the US Department of Labor's O*NET database, the results of which are tested through a sensitivity analysis using the European Working Condition Survey and the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies data sets. Findings: The paper finds that indeed German workers respond to increasing immigration by shifting their task supply and providing more communication relative to manual tasks. Importantly, the decrease in the supply of communication tasks is stronger and more robust than the increase in the supply of manual tasks, pointing to a potential displacement effect taking place between natives and immigrants, alongside task reallocation. This would suggest that countries with relatively more rigid labour markets are less responsive to immigration shocks. Moreover, it suggests that labour market rigidity can minimise the gains from immigration and exacerbate employment effects. Originality/value: The paper not only investigates task reallocation as a result of immigration in a different institutional context and labour market functioning, but the results feed into broader policy and scholarly discussions on the effects of immigration, including questions about how the institutional context affects labour market adjustment to immigration, worker occupational mobility in a more rigid labour markets and the fine balance needed between flexibility and rigidity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- The purpose of this paper is to analyse immigrant-native wage differentials in Spain. Design/methodology/approach -- The paper exploits the Earnings Structure Survey 2006, which is the first nationally representative sample of both foreign and Spanish employees. Using the Machado-Mata econometric procedure, wage differentials between locals and foreigners are decomposed into the gap related to characteristics and the one due to different returns on endowments (i.e. discrimination). Findings -- The paper finds that, in absolute terms, the latter component grows across the wage distribution, reflecting the existence of a kind of glass ceiling, consistent with the evidence of over-education found in previous research. Originality/value -- The paper for the first time explores earnings differentials between immigrant and Spanish workers using a nationally representative database. In addition, standard errors are computed in order to determine if the gaps are statistically significant, a task not addressed by previous works. Finally, the work is relevant as Spain has become a host country only a few years ago. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse the effect of unemployment and labour institutions such as employment protection legislation, coverage of unemployment benefits, minimum wages (MW), union power and tax wedge on migration flows. The authors allow for interactions of these institutions with migration entry laws, as both affect equilibrium wages and employment in destination countries, influencing mobility decisions of immigrants. Design/methodology/approach – The authors use data on migration flows for a sample of 15 OECD countries over the period 1980-2006. The relationship between flows and labour institutions is analysed using OLS techniques and including destination and origin-by-year fixed effects. The coefficients of interest are identified through within country variation. The authors test the robustness of the results to different specifications using, among others, dynamic models for panel data. Findings – The authors find strong and negative effects of unemployment, employment protection and migration policy on flows. The negative effect of migration policy on flows is larger in countries with high than in countries with low employment protection. The authors find positive effects for MW, unemployment benefits and union power. The authors show heterogeneous effects depending on the group of countries of origin and destination. Research limitations/implications – While the identification strategy allows us to estimate the effects of interest, the baseline estimates may suffer from endogeneity problems in terms of omitted variable bias and reverse causality. The sensitivity checks provide mixed results and show that baseline estimates are not always robust to different specifications. Further work is needed to better address the problem of endogeneity. Originality/value – The paper adds to the previous literature on the determinants of immigration flows by explicitly considering the labour market environment in destination countries. The results provide insights into potential interaction effects and coordination of reforms in labour markets and immigration policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to seek test for the precondition for labour-market competition between immigrants and natives, which implies that both are willing to accept jobs that do not differ in quality. Design/methodology/approach – To test this hypothesis, using Spanish data, the paper analyses whether immigrants and natives exhibit different tastes for working conditions. The paper proceeds as follows. First, the paper estimates job satisfaction equations, where working conditions enter as covariates. Second, the paper tests whether the package of (dis)amenities inherent to their jobs differ. Additionally, the paper also tests for assimilation of immigrant workers in terms of job quality. Findings – The paper finds that immigrant and native workers tend to exhibit the same taste for most on-the-job amenities. However, immigrants are more tolerant with jobs involving poorer environmental working conditions, more physically demanding tasks and higher exposure to physical damage. The paper also finds that immigrant workers tend to be employed in lower quality jobs. However, some of the bad working conditions tend to improve over time, suggesting some assimilation in terms of job quality. Originality/value – The type of analysis the authors carry out here allows them to contribute to the literature by moving a step away from the conventional approach used in previous studies. While previous literature mostly analyses the effect of immigration in natives' labour market outcomes and assimilation of immigrants in terms of wages and employment, this study is one of the few that focus on working conditions and the quality of jobs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to critique the last decade of research on the effects of high-skill emigration from developing countries, and proposes six new directions for fruitful research.Design/methodology/approach The study singles out a core assumption underlying much of the recent literature, calling it the “Lump of Learning model” of human capital and development, and describes five ways that research has come to challenge that assumption. It assesses the usefulness of that model in the face of accumulating evidence.Findings The axioms of the Lump of Learning model have shaped research priorities in this literature, but many of those axioms do not have a clear empirical basis. Future research proceeding from established facts would set different priorities, and would devote more attention to measuring the effects of migration on skilled migrant households, rigorously estimating human capital externalities, gathering microdata beyond censuses, and carefully considering optimal policy – among others.Originality/value The recent literature has pursued a series of extensions to the Lump of Learning model. This study urges instead discarding that model, pointing toward a new paradigm for research on skilled migration and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- The purpose of this paper is to examine two aspects of the self-employment adjustment of immigrant groups in the UK. First, how the probability of self-employment for males changes with time since migration relative to the native population and second, how the probability of self-employment for males differs between immigrants and the UK-born within ethnic groups. Design/methodology/approach -- Limited dependent variable regression models are estimated using data from the UK Labour Force Survey collected between 2001 and 2005. The results are presented graphically to make clear the differences between ethnic groups. Findings -- The predicted self-employment probability of "Asian" immigrants increases faster than that of natives over the lifecycle while that of "Black" groups declines. Furthermore, the observed lower propensity of UK-born members of certain ethnic groups to be in self-employment is largely explained by differences in human capital. Practical implications -- High rates of self-employment amongst some ethnic groups in the UK are unlikely to be a transitory phenomenon. Originality/value -- While previous work on the UK has examined patterns of self-employment between groups and over time, the paper looks for the first time at how adjustment within groups takes place over the life cycle and across nativity status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- The aim of this paper is to study the role of intermarriage in the process of immigrant economic assimilation in France. Design/methodology/approach -- The authors estimate an earnings equation for immigrants in France to examine the extent to which intermarried immigrants are better assimilated in the labor market -- as measured by earnings -- than their non-intermarried counterparts. To handle the possible endogeneity problem of intermarriage, two novel instruments are used: the "sex ratio" for each region-ethnicity cell, and "probability of marrying within one's own ethnic group". Findings -- It was found that immigrants who are intermarried earn around 17 per cent more than immigrants who are endogamously married. After taking into account individual characteristics and endogeneity of intermarriage, the premium is around 25 to 35 per cent. In addition, the intermarriage premium is substantially higher for individuals who have a better grasp of the French language before migration than for those whose language skill is poor. This result seems to suggest that, perhaps, immigrants who have a strong base in the native language can gain greater benefit from intermarriage. Originality/value -- The paper is the first to investigate this important aspect of immigrants' assimilation process in the French labor market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether immigrants in the USA receive an earnings premium associated with marrying a native. Design/methodology/approach – The raw premium revealed by the 2000 US Census data is suspect due to possible endogeneity and selection bias. Instrumental variables estimation, a sample selection model, and a counterfactual construction method are used to address these issues. Findings – Results suggest a positive and modest intermarriage premium, although the magnitude varies with the estimation technique. The evidence is particularly strong for immigrants with high English proficiency, college graduates, and immigrants older than 12 upon arrival in the USA. Originality/value – It is shown that the size of intermarriage premiums varies significantly across different immigrant groups. The empirical results provide insights into the economic assimilation process and mechanisms through which intermarriage influences the labor market outcomes of immigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine immigrant self-employment in Spain. The study aims to determine the likelihood of immigrants being self-employed, the differences between Spaniards and immigrants in terms of self-employment and differences among immigrants from different regions of origin. Design/methodology/approach – Data from the Labour Force Survey for 2005-2011 are used for a descriptive analysis of self-employment. Logit regressions allow us to study the determinants of immigrant self-employment. Findings – Unlike research conducted in other countries, the rate of immigrant self-employment in Spain is lower than that of nationals, although differences exist according to the region of origin. Men and older individuals are more likely to be self-employed. Those with higher levels of education are also more likely to be self-employed – this may be attributable to the decreased availability of skilled positions for immigrants. Research limitations/implications – The sample size does not allow for differential analyses regarding the region of origin or the existence and influence of enclaves. Practical implications – Self-employment may be an opportunity for immigrants to improve their position in the labour market, especially in the case of highly skilled workers. Originality/value – In Spain, analyses of immigrant self-employment are rare and generally focus on case studies. However, this study covers the whole population within a highly specific economic situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to estimate the impact of the agglomeration economies as pull factor of international migration between the European Union and the countries involved in the European Neighbouring Policy. Design/methodology/approach – The applied research is conducted in the 1970-2000 period by using a gravitational model and estimated by linear and non-linear models with a wide fixed-effects structure. Findings – The main finding of this work is the fact that increasing urbanisation matters more as a pull factor than improvements in GDP per capita. The interpretation of these results may be linked with the existence of opportunities arising in cities. Besides, immigrants not only look for monetary outcomes from migrating, but also non-economic territorial features. Originality/value – Few works have analysed previously the role of urbanisation on international migration flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explain the current role of foreign foundations in the cross-border mobility of Russian elite scientists. Design/methodology/approach – The methodology is based on a combination of a quantitative survey (December 2004-February 2005) of former Russian Humboldtians and qualitative research (expert interviews in 2005 and in 2012, respectively) of Russian alumni of the Alexander von Humboldt foundation (Germany). Findings – For Russian elite researchers participating in academic mobility, in 2000s it is rather cross-border mobility’ brain circulation’ rather than “brain drain” a dominant form of academic mobility typical. Even in 2000s, western foundations still played a significant while twofold role – promoting emigration of for a small part of Russian elite researchers, on the one hand, while and getting access to top-level labs, etc. and to international academic chains of excellence for the majority of them, on the other. Coming back to the home country, affiliation with foreign foundations reduces the dependence of Russian elite researchers on hierarchical structures within the national state science system and promotes project teams and network forms of interaction their career. However, Russian scientists dependence on foreign funding affect both the scope of research and their academic status (mostly – second-level positions within research projects, etc.). Among the reasons to for leave leaving Russia it is primarily the desire to remain have closer access to their academic community and the equipment to do on the top level in research. The paper formulates some measures to foster incentives to stay in Russia and respectively to support re-emigration of elite researchers, in form of world class research labs and strengthening the motivation of senior researchers to work in the home country. Research limitations/implications – Research limitations consist in using of only one of the alumni networks of several western foundations database. Originality/value – The paper is unique as regards the empirical results; its value consists in their organizational, social and political implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the determinants of immigration from European Neighborhood (EN) and new member states to the EU core countries over the period 2000-2010. Apart from income differentials, unemployment rates and other standard variables hypothesized to determine immigration, the paper focusses attention on welfare-chasing as well as measures to enforce immigration policy. Using a variant of the gravity model, the paper investigates whether tests of these hypotheses are robust with respect to spatial misspecification. Design/methodology/approach – The determinants of migration from the European Neighborhood and new member states to the EU core countries is estimated using a spatial variant of the gravity model. The methodology is used for both multilateral and spatial flows. Gravity model estimations are presented for immigration into the EU core destinations using standard, non-spatial econometrics, as well as spatial econometrics for single and double-spatial dynamics. Findings – Immigration to EU core countries varies directly with the change in social spending per head in the destination. This result stands out in all the models, both OLS and spatial. Immigrants are attracted by economic inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient. However, in this case it is the level that matters rather than its change. No evidence is found that the threat of apprehension at the destination deters migrants from the European Neighborhood and other countries. Research limitations/implications – The authors assume multilateralism is spatial. This means that everything else given, destinations are closer substitutes the nearer they are, and that immigration shocks are likely to be more correlated among origins the closer they are. This implicit assumption is restrictive because multilateralism is just spatial. Social implications – While immigration to EU core countries varies directly with the change in (not level of) social spending per head. If a given country becomes more benevolent it attracts more immigration. The results suggest that if during 2000-2010 social spending per capita grew by 1 percent, the immigration rate increased by between 1 and 2 percentage points relative to the number of foreign-born in 2000. This is a large demographic effect. Originality/value – Uniquely, this paper does not assume immigration flows are independent and stresses their spatial and multilateral nature. A series of new non-spatial and spatial (single and double-spatial lag) models are used to empirically test hypotheses about the determinants of immigration to the EU core countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to approach a new aspect of the assimilation of immigrants in Spain. In particular, it is analyzed the effect of the type of contract on immigrant wages. The data used in this analysis come from the Spanish National Immigrant Survey, which was conducted by the Spanish Statistics Institute (INE) between 2006 and 2007. Design/methodology/approach – First, the methods and econometric specifications applied develop a wage model where the variable “contract type” is considered as an endogenous regressor. Second, the average wage gap between temporary and permanent workers is decomposed between a portion attributable to differences in characteristics and another to differences in coefficients. Findings – It is found that workers with a permanent contract received a wage premium with respect to temporary workers even for equal work and equal productivity. Social implications – Results indicate the importance of job stability for the integration and assimilation of immigrants in Spain, and offer an economic argument to support labour policies that encourage stable employment relationships. Originality/value – This paper takes a novel approach of the assimilation of immigrants in the Spanish labour market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to quantify the wage gap between native and immigrant women in Spain, taking into account differences in their characteristics and the need to control for common support. If immigrant women are segregated in occupations with few native women, it is important to take this into account to analyse wage differentials between both collectives. Design/methodology/approach – Microdata from the Continuous Sample of Working Histories (Muestra Continua de Vidas Laborales) on wages and other personal characteristics such as gender, country of origin, and age were used to apply the matching procedure and the decomposition of the wage gap, along the lines of Nopo, for the analysis of wage differentials between native and immigrant women. The advantage of this procedure is that one can simultaneously estimate the common support and the mean counterfactual wage for the women on the common support (i.e. comparing native and immigrant women with similar observable characteristics). In addition, differences not only at the mean but also along the entire wage distribution can be described. Findings – The results obtained indicate that, on average, immigrant women earn less than native women in the Spanish labour market. This wage gap is bigger when immigrant women from developing countries are considered, but the authors' main finding is that an important part of this wage gap is related to differences in common support (i.e. immigrant women are segregated in certain jobs with low wages different from those occupied by native women). If the need to control for common support is neglected, estimates of the wage gap will be biased. Originality/value – Studying the case of Spain is particularly interesting because it is a country with abundant and recent immigration. Immigrant women account for more than half of the total immigrants in Spain, and unlike other host countries, they come from a highly varied range of countries, with origins as diverse as Latin America, the Maghreb and Eastern Europe. To the authors' knowledge, no other study has explicitly focused on the analysis of the wage differential of immigrant women in the Spanish labour market by taking into account the need to control for common support. Moreover, published papers illustrating the potentiality of Nopo's methodology are also very scarce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – Previous studies of immigrant populations suggest that ceteris paribus an immigrant's level of income is strongly and positively correlated with his proficiency in the local language. The purpose of this paper is to extend this literature using data from a telephone survey carried out in 2005 among a representative sample of Former Soviet Union (FSU) immigrants. Unlike previous surveys, the data includes responses to detailed subjective questions on degree of social involvement, in addition to the number of years since migration and level of proficiency in the local language. The authors are able to demonstrate that a higher degree of assimilation is associated with a significantly higher likelihood of finding full-time employment. Moreover, the estimation results for the wage equation reveal that the effect on income previously attributed solely to language proficiency is in fact also the result of more successful assimilation in the receiving culture. The findings thus stress the importance of assimilation in determining success in job search and in explaining variations in income among immigrants who are already employed in full-time jobs. Finally, the results obtained when differentiating according to gender show that male immigrants have better prospects of finding a job than female immigrants and higher incomes once they find one, which is consistent with the existing literature. Design/methodology/approach – In order to compare the relative importance of the language proficiency variable (LANGUAGEi) to that of the social involvement variable (ASSIMILATIONi), The authors apply the probit model to two separate equations. The first is the prospects of finding a job and the second is the wage equation. Findings –The authors are able to demonstrate that a higher degree of assimilation is associated with a significantly higher likelihood of finding full-time employment. Moreover, the estimation results for the wage equation reveal that the effect on income previously attributed solely to language proficiency is in fact also the result of more successful assimilation in the receiving culture. The findings thus stress the importance of assimilation in determining success in job search and in explaining variations in income among immigrants who are already employed in full-time jobs. Finally, the results obtained when differentiating according to gender show that male immigrants have better prospects of finding a job than female immigrants and higher incomes once they find one, which is consistent with the existing literature. Research limitations/implications – The limitation is, like all of the existing literature and in particular the few studies that deal with social networking, that the database is exclusively based on either interviews or surveys consisting of self-assessment questions (such as, Dustman, 1996; Lazear, 1999; Amuedo-Dorantes and Mundra, 2007). Consequently, the implicit assumption is that the respondent's self-perceived level of assimilation constitutes a good proxy for the true level. Practical implications – The implications are the following: the findings are thus consistent with those of Lazear (1999), who anticipates a negative correlation between the relative size of a minority group and the level of proficiency in the local language. In the case of Israel, which received a massive wave of 1.5 million immigrants from the FSU, the findings indeed suggest that the chances of an immigrant job seeker finding a job are far more dependent on his degree of assimilation than his level of language proficiency. Moreover, the effect of the degree of assimilation, which has not previously been included in estimations, was mistakenly attributed to language proficiency. The findings of this research thus reveal the importance of the degree of assimilation in finding a job and can expla [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The paper aims to present research findings on the return intentions of Turkish professionals residing abroad, where the targeted group comprises individuals working at a full-time job abroad who possess at least a tertiary level degree. Design/methodology/approach - The study uses a descriptive framework to establish the validity of several proposed models of non-return. The results are based on an internet survey of Turkish professionals conducted by the authors during the first half of 2002. A combination of internet search and referral sampling methods is used to collect the data. Correspondence analysis is used to examine the relationship between return intentions and various factors that may affect this intention. Findings - The results emphasize the importance of student non-return versus traditional brain and appear to complement the various theories of student non-return. Many Turkish professionals working abroad are non-returning post-graduate students rather than holders of higher degrees obtained in Turkey who subsequently moved. The respondents appear to come from relatively well-to-do families with highly educated parents. Many have earned their degrees from universities that have foreign language instruction. The recent economic crises in Turkey have negatively affected return intentions. It is verified that return intentions are indeed linked closely with initial return plans, and that this relationship weakens with stay duration. Specialized study and work experience in the host country also all appear to contribute to explaining the incidence of non-return. Return intentions are weaker for those working in an academic environment. Originality/value - The study is the first of its kind for Turkey and other developing countries in terms of the number of responses received and the kind of information collected. Implications are valuable for Turkish and other developing country planners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]