Gender, Selection into Employment, and the Wage Impact of Immigration

George J. Borjas and Anthony Edo

Journal of Labor Economics, 2026, vol. 44, issue 2, 515 - 552

Abstract: Natives are expected to respond to the wage impact of immigration by moving across markets. We argue that the observed impact depends not only on the size of the native response but also on which natives choose to respond. Specifically, a nonrandom response produces a selection bias. We document its empirical relevance by showing that the strong feminization of the French immigrant workforce reduced the employment of native women, leading to sizable compositional shifts and no correlation between immigration and female wages. Adjusting for selection bias results in a wage elasticity that becomes negative for women and similar to men.

Date: 2026
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