Lost in translation? The relative wages of immigrants in the Portuguese labour market

This article examines the wage gaps between immigrant and Portuguese workers using matched employer–employee data for the 2002–2008 period. We found that most of the wage gap is not due to the worst endowments of the immigrants but to differences in the returns to those characteristics and to the immigrant status effect. In particular, immigrants’ education and foreign experience are significantly less valued in the Portuguese labour market. Overall, the wages of immigrants do not fully converge to those of comparable natives as domestic experience increases. The assimilation rates tend to be stronger in the first years after migration and for immigrants with higher levels of foreign experience. Total immigrants are a heterogeneous group of different nationalities, with immigrants from the EU15 and China starring as the two extreme cases.     

Temporary and Permanent Immigration under Unionization

This paper investigates permanent and temporary immigration and remittance under the coexistence of unionized and non‐unionized manufacturing firms in a two‐sector economy. The impacts of immigration and remittance on respectively wages, employment, the union–non‐union wage gap and national welfare are analyzed. It is found that both permanent immigration (economy‐wide) and temporary immigration in agriculture bring positive effects on most variables (except the competitive wage), but widens the wage gap and causes income redistribution in the host country. However, if temporary immigrants work in manufacturing only, then all wages and the union–non‐union wage gap fall. That is, workers become more equally paid but poorer. In addition, remittance and globalization cause negative effects on union workers and employers. It is perhaps such consequences and the income redistribution effect of immigration that cause the media to paint a negative image of immigration.     

Wage settlements and wage setting: results from a multi-level model

Which dimensions of wage setting differ across establishments applying collective contracts and uncovered establishments? The empirical analysis reported here utilizes German linked employer–employee data for the years 1990, 1995 and 2001 and is restricted to workers without supervisory functions in larger manufacturing firms. Results show that the expected wage of an average worker is higher in firms applying collective contracts, while returns to human capital and the gender wage gap are reduced. Moreover, during the 1990s these effects became stronger.     

Native-immigrant wage differentials in Greece: discrimination and assimilation

This article applies the Blinder–Oaxaca methodology in order to dissect the average earnings differentials between Greek workers and three different groups of immigrants into a part attributed to differences in characteristics and a part due to discrimination. It also seeks to identify the effect of assimilation (i.e. postmigration human capital) on immigrants’ earnings. We use information about 8429 individuals, of which 1185 are immigrants. The data are drawn from the Greek Labour Force Survey (2009). Our results suggest that discrimination is significantly higher for immigrants originating from non-EU countries than it is for EU foreigners, while it is negative for those who terminated education in Greece. Also, there is evidence that (i) post-migration human capital is a significant determinant of immigrants earnings, (ii) there is limited transferability of skills between sending countries and Greece and (iii) education is the main determinant of the wage gap between natives and immigrants.     

HIGH-SKILLED MIGRATION AND THE EXERTION OF EFFORT BY THE LOCAL POPULATION

The optimal design of immigration policy is a topical issue, both in the policy debate and the economic literature. In this paper, we present empirical evidence from a firm level dataset collected in 2000 on the demand for high-skilled workers, including foreign workers, in Europe and its determinants. Our major findings are that the fraction of high-skilled workers recruited from the international labour market is very small, and that foreign and domestic workers are very similar in terms of their formal education (measured by specialization subject) and their job characteristics. We suggest an efficiency wage model to explain why firms recruit foreign workers in small numbers, and why they are willing to pay immigrants the same wage as local workers, whilst at the same time also paying for their moving costs, despite the similar human capital profile of immigrants to domestic workers.     

Immigration and domestic wage: an empirical study on competition among immigrants

While studies on the wage effects of immigration focus on native workers, there is significantly less information on the wage effects of immigration on domestic foreign-born workers. In addition to analysing the impact of immigration on wages of native workers, in this article, we estimate the internal competition among foreign-born workers in the United States. Firstly, using data from the Current Population Survey, we find no empirical evidence supporting the substitutability of native workers for immigrants. Secondly, there is no statistical difference between skilled and unskilled immigrants on the influence of the domestic labour market outcomes. Finally, there is no internal competition among immigrants. The income of non-citizen workers mainly depends on state and national levels of economic situations, not the number of non-citizen workers available in the labour market.     

IMMIGRANT RELATIVE WAGES AT THE GREAT RECESSION: EVIDENCE WITH MATCHED EMPLOYER‐EMPLOYEE DATA FOR SPAIN

The article examines relative wages of immigrants in Spain, with a particular focus on the impact of the Great Recession. The empirical analysis is restricted to men and is based on matched employer‐employee microdata and the decomposition techniques of Juhn et al. (1991, 1993) and Fortin et al. (2011). Our results show that the significant native‐immigrant wage gap that exists both in terms of average wages and of differentials along the wage distribution is essentially explained by differences in the endowments of observed characteristics so that, in general, immigrants tend to receive a similar wage treatment than Spaniards with analogous observed attributes. On the other hand, the Great Recession has had a noticeable impact on the relative wages of immigrants, given that the significant increase of the native‐immigrant wage gap observed during the previous expansionary period was mitigated during the economic downturn due to composition effects arising from the severe employment destruction pattern.     

‘HAVE YOU FELT ANGRY LATELY?’: A NOTE ON UNFAIR WAGE PERCEPTIONS AND THE NEGATIVE EMOTION OF ANGER

The author analyses the nexus between unfair wage perceptions of workers and the frequency of the negative emotion of anger. For this purpose, German household panel data for the years 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2013 are used. Angry feelings in the last four weeks have occurred significantly more frequently for workers who perceive their wage as unfair, whereas the own absolute hourly wage is not significantly correlated with the frequency of having felt angry. The results further indicate that workers have felt more often angry if working hours are larger; but the economic significance seems rather small compared to unfair wage perceptions.     

ESTIMATING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN IMMIGRANT AND NATIVE WORKERS IN AUSTRALIA: A PRODUCTION THEORY APPROACH

The impact of immigration on labour markets depends, among other factors, on the substitutability or complementarity between immigrants and natives. This relationship is examined by treating migrant and native labour, along with capital, as inputs in production process. Estimated price elasticities of substitution between immigrants and native labour suggest that in Australian context, an increase in the wage rate of one group of workers leads to an increased demand for the other. The estimated elasticities of substitution between immigrant and native workers and the complementary relationship between immigrants and capital provide an insight into the complex effects of immigration.     

贸易开放与性别工资差距

本文在不完全竞争市场环境下,建立贸易开放和性别工资差距的数理模型。在理论分析的基础之上,本文运用2002年中国家庭住户收入项目调查数据(CHIP)进行实证分析。在控制了年龄、婚姻状况和受教育年限等个体层面和人均GDP等城市层面的工资影响因素情形下,得出结论:贸易开放在总体上拉大了性别工资差距;贸易开放缩小了高技能劳动力的性别工资差距,拉大了低技能劳动力的性别工资差距。从某种意义上说,女性弱势群体更容易被排除在贸易开放的利益之外。因此,提高女性的受教育程度,并为之提供相应的制度保障具有尤为重要的政策含义。     

Analysis of wage differences between native and immigrant workers in Spain

This paper analyses the nature of wage differences between native and immigrant workers in Spain. By estimating separated wage equations for the sub samples of both native and non-native workers and applying the Oaxaca–Blinder method, we observe that the relative unexplained (or discriminatory) component of the wage difference has a decreasing behaviour along the most part of the wage distribution, even becoming negative at the end. So, in this paper we detect the existence of a remarkable wage difference against the group of immigrants with the lowest wages which is not explained by the differences in the productive features of both native and non-native workers. This paper has been funded by the project SEJ2004-04065/ECON. Previous versions of this article have greatly improved thanks to the comments of two anonymous referees and the Managing Editor.     

The Role of Gender among Low-Paid and High-Paid Workers

Using data from the 2001 Australian Census of Population and Housing Household Sample File, this article analyses the gender wage gap across the wage distribution by using a quan‐tile regression approach. The results show that there is a much larger gender wage gap among high‐paid workers than there is among low‐paid workers. Moreover, this wage gap tends to increase reasonably uniformly when one is moving up through the wage distribution. Institutional factors, the work environment and social norms are all areas that may require attention in order to redress the undervaluation of women's skills.     

效率工资、租金分享与企业工资收入差距——基于第一次全国经济普查工业企业数据的实证研究

企业利润对工资差距的影响究竟来自效率工资还是来自租金分享,这是理论界和政策制定者共同关心的问题。文章利用2004年第一次全国经济普查数据实证分析发现:(1)企业利润是解释我国企业工资差距的重要因素,这主要由效率工资导致。(2)国有企业存在租金共享,但它不是通过企业利润实现的,而是利用行业垄断地位直接将职工高工资转化为企业成本实现的。(3)集体企业存在着租金共享。(4)外资企业也存在租金共享,但存在租金共享的外资企业同时具有更高的效率。(5)私营企业存在效率工资。与其他所有制企业不同的是,对私营企业而言,行业垄断不但不能提高反而会降低职工工资水平,或反过来说,产品市场竞争有利于提高职工工资水平。最后,文章针对性地给出了一些缩小企业工资差距的政策建议。     

市场歧视对城镇地区性别工资差距的影响

本文使用基于分位数回归的反事实分析方法研究了中国城镇地区的性别工资差距问题,发现了以下三个结论:第一,性别工资差距在工资分布不同位置上存在不对称现象。从横截面数据来看,在工资分布顶端性别工资差距较小,在工资分布末端性别工资差距较大。从时序数据来看,在工资分布顶端性别工资差距越来越小,在工资分布末端性别工资差距越来越大。第二,性别工资差距在横截面数据上表现出不对称现象的原因是,女性在工资分布顶端受到的歧视程度低,在末端受到的歧视程度高。第三,性别工资差距在工资分布末端越来越大的原因是,女性受到的歧视程度越来越高;在工资分布顶端越来越小的原因是,男性和女性个人特征方面(如受教育水平)的差别越来越小。     

Wage differentials by sector and gender: a quantile analysis for the Spanish case

This paper analyses existing wage differentials between workers in the public and private sectors and by gender in Spain. This analysis is run throughout the entire earnings distribution and observed wage differentials are decomposed into a part explained by differences in productive characteristics and a part due to differences in returns to such characteristics. Our results show that public sector workers tend to earn higher wages than private employees, although most of this sector wage gap is due to better public workers’ productive characteristics. A wage premium in favour of men is also found in both the public and private sectors, with the gender wage gap greater at the top of the earnings distribution.     

Male–female wage discrimination in Chinese industryInvestigation using firm‐level data1

We use firm‐level data to analyze male–female wage discrimination in China's industry. We find that there is a significant negative association between wages and the share of female workers in a firm's labour force. However, we also find that the marginal productivity of female workers is significantly lower than that of male workers. Comparing wage gaps and productivity gaps between men and women, we notice an intriguing contrast between state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) and private firms. The wage gap is smaller than the productivity gap in SOEs, while the converse is true for private firms. These results suggest that women in the state sector receive wage premiums, whereas women in the private sector face wage discrimination.     

Immigrant-Native Wage Differentials and Immigration Reform

The US Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) increased the monitoring of illegal employment and fined employers who hire undocumented immigrants. Since these provisions tax immigrant wages, it might be expected that the immigrant-native wage gap would increase after IRCA. This hypothesis is explored by decomposing immigrant-native wage differentials before and after IRCA. It is found that (i) the immigrant-native wage gap increased; (ii) in each year most of this gap was due to individual and job characteristics; (iii) the change in the gap is due primarily to overvaluation of native characteristics and to a lesser extent to undervaluation of immigrant characteristics.     

THE IMPACT OF PERSONALITY TRAITS ON WAGE GROWTH AND THE GENDER WAGE GAP

This paper considers the impact of personality traits on the change of the gender wage gap. Using data from the German Socioeconomic Panel (SOEP), we first explore how personality traits affect wage growth rates. Then, a decomposition analysis is performed to analyse the dynamic effects of personality traits on the change of the gender wage gap over time. Our empirical results indicate that gender differences in conscientiousness and emotional stability lead to a widening of the wage gap over time. By contrast, gender differences in extraversion lead to a narrowing of the wage gap over time.     

A Model of Smuggling and Trafficking of Illegal Immigrants with a Host Country Policy

This paper deals with illegal immigration via two distinct activities—smuggling and trafficking of workers. A destination–source model determines economic pay‐offs and a standard labor market policy works as a deterrent. Tax paid by legal unskilled workers at the destination is determined endogenously and it finances inland monitoring against illegal immigration, holding the border patrol at a given level. The tax also finances unemployment benefit to legal workers at the destination. The number of immigrant smugglers and traffickers is also determined endogenously along with employer penalty and market wage for illegal immigrants. Higher unemployment benefits may reduce illegal wages, raise traffickers’ rent and reduce flow of illegal immigrants from the source countries.     

Explaining Eastern Germany's Wage Gap: The Impact of Structural Change

Since Eastern Germany's conversion to a market economy wages have remained considerably below the West German wage level. This article looks at the role of establishment-specific factors—such as sectoral affiliation and size of the labour force—in this process. A non-parametric decomposition that has played a prominent role in the gender wage gap literature is applied to breakdown the East–West wage gap into its constituent components. Using establishment data from German employment statistics, the article demonstrates that the catching-up process of Eastern Germany's wage level is hindered by the shift in its economic structure towards lower-paying types of companies, which has caused the lagging behind in the adjustment of wages.