SOFI Working Papers in Labour Economics,
Stockholm University, Swedish Institute for Social Research

Abstract: We study how exposure of employers to immigrants, both at the market and at the individual firm level, mitigates immigrant-native disparities. We use administrative employee-employer matched data from Portugal, which provides a unique setting given that it experienced almost no immigration until the early 2000s followed by substantial immigration waves. Focusing on the evolution of market wages across successive immigration cohorts, we find that increased employer exposure to immigrant groups can account for up to 25% of the wage convergence between immigrants and natives over the last two decades. We also document that individual-level exposure of firms to immigrants plays an important role, influencing future hiring and remuneration of immigrants. Our results provide new insights into how barriers to hiring different worker groups shape economic inequality, with novel implications for integration policies.

Keywords: immigration; immigrant-native wage gaps

JEL-codes: J15; J31

Language: English

35 pages, March 1, 2024

Full text files

FULLTEXT02.pdf  Full text

Download statistics

• Stockholm University, Swedish Institute for Social Research
• Home page for this series

Questions (including download problems) about the papers in this series should be directed to Lucas Tilley ()
Report other problems with accessing this service to Sune Karlsson ().

RePEc:hhs:sofile:2024_002This page generated on 2024-10-18 07:06:59.