IMMIGRANTS' ASSIMILATION PROCESS IN A SEGMENTED LABOR MARKET

Miguel Angel Alcobendas and Núria Rodriguez-Planas

UFAE and IAE Working Papers from Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC)

Abstract: While much of the literature on immigrants' assimilation has focused on countries with a large tradition of receiving immigrants and with flexible labor markets, very little is known on how immigrants adjust to other types of host economies. With its severe dual labor market, and an unprecedented immigration boom, Spain presents a quite unique experience to analyze immigrations' assimilation process. Using data from the 2000 to 2008 Labor Force Survey, we find that immigrants are more occupationally mobile than natives, and that much of this greater flexibility is explained by immigrants' assimilation process soon after arrival. However, we find little evidence of convergence, especially among women and high skilled immigrants. This suggests that instead of integrating, immigrants occupationally segregate, providing evidence consistent with both imperfect substitutability and immigrants' human capital being under-valued. Additional evidence on the assimilation of earnings and the incidence of permanent employment by different skill levels also supports the hypothesis of segmented labor markets.

Keywords: Key words: immigrants' assimilation effects; cohort effects; and occupational distributions and mobility; segmented labor markets. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J15 J24 J61 J62 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 77
Date: 2010-05-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab and nep-mig
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Immigrants' Assimilation Process in a Segmented Labor Market (2009)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aub:autbar:822.10

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