Task specialization and the Native‐Foreign Wage Gap

Eduard Storm

LABOUR, 2022, vol. 36, issue 2, 167-195

Abstract: This study documents that worker‐level variation in tasks has played a key role in the widening of the German Native‐Foreign Wage Gap. I find idiosyncratic differences account for up to 34 per cent of the wage gap. Importantly, natives specialize in high‐paying interactive activities not only between, but also within occupations. In contrast, foreign workers specialize in low‐paying manual activities. This enhanced degree of task specialization accounts for 11 per cent of the gap among high‐wage earners and 25 per cent among low‐wage earner, thus offering new insight into sources for imperfect substitution of native and foreign workers and consequently small migration‐induced wage effects.

Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/labr.12220

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:labour:v:36:y:2022:i:2:p:167-195

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=1121-7081

Access Statistics for this article

LABOUR is currently edited by Franco Peracchi

More articles in LABOUR from CEIS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().