Rewarding experiences? - Immigrant wage returns to host country employment

Zeynep Atabay and Olof Åslund ()
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Zeynep Atabay: Uppsala University and UCLS
Olof Åslund: Uppsala University, IFAU, RF Berlin

No 2026:6, Working Paper Series from IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy

Abstract: We examine the wage returns to host-country work experience among immigrants by reconstructing full employment histories using Swedish pension records and longitudinal matched employer–employee data. Our findings show that: (i) returns to experience are sizable and concave, consistent with standard models, and vary by gender, education, and region of origin; (ii) returns for immigrant workers have risen since the early 2000s; (iii) returns differ across industries and occupations, with experience in high-skill and high-wage workplaces being especially valuable; (iv) returns are generally greater for natives than for immigrants; and (v) potential experience serves as a reasonable proxy at lower experience levels but tends to overstate returns for more experienced workers.

Keywords: experience; wages; immigrants (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J31 J61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 41 pages
Date: 2026-03-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-lab, nep-lma and nep-mig
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2026_006

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