Labour Market Assimilation of Recent Immigrants in Spain
| Author | Catalina Amuedo‐Dorantes,Sara De La Rica |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.2007.00614.x |
| Published date | 01 June 2007 |
| Date | 01 June 2007 |
Labour Market Assimilation of Recent
Immigrants in Spain
Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes and Sara de la Rica
Abstract
This article provides a preliminary analysis of the employment and occupational
assimilation of recent immigrant waves to the Spanish labour market as their
residencies lengthen. Using Spanish data from the 2001 Population Census and
the 2002 Earnings Structure Survey, we find evidence of immigrant employment
and occupational assimilation significantly varying by gender, origin and edu-
cational attainment.
1. Introduction
Migration remains nowadays one of the most important topics of interest in
population economics. Academic research regarding migration has concen-
trated on the effect of immigrant on natives, migration policy, the determi-
nants of migration and assimilation of migrants. This study focuses on the
last of these four topics. In this regard, and since the seminal work of
Chiswick (1978), a great deal of attention has been dedicated to assessing the
labour market performance of immigrants relative to that of natives as they
integrate to their host country. This is undoubtedly an important issue from
both a social and an economic point of view for every country with a
non-negligible immigration rate. In the case of Spain, where immigration has
been increasing at an impressive pace during the past decade, a better under-
standing of how immigrants assimilate as their residence lengthens becomes
crucial.
Preliminary findings by Chiswick (1978) for the United States found that,
while immigrants earned significantly less than natives upon their arrival,
they caught up with natives in terms of earnings as they integrated in the host
country. Chiswick (1978) used cross-sectional studies and compared the earn-
ings of immigrants relative to natives of different cohorts. However, these
findings were later questioned by Borjas (1985, 1995), who challenged the
Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes is at San Diego State University and IZA. Sara de la Rica is at
Universidad del País Vasco and IZA.
British Journal of Industrial Relations
45:2 June 2007 0007–1080 pp. 257–284
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2007. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd,
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
assumption in these cross-section studies that the quality of immigrants
across cohorts did not change, an assumption that Borjas (1985) refuted.
Borjas showed that the quality of immigrants in the United States had
declined over the decades and, as a result, assimilation was not taking place
as rapidly as Chiswick (1978) suggested. Additional studies examining the
assimilation of immigrants to countries other than the United States include
those of Longva and Raaum (2003) for Norway; Hartog and Winkelmann
(2003) for the Netherlands; Bevelander and Nielsen (2001) for Sweden; Con-
stant and Massey (2003) for Germany; Wheatly Price (1999) and, more
recently, Clark and Lindley (2005) for the UK, among others. This is the first
empirical study on the labour market assimilation of immigrants in Spain.
This article fills this gap by focusing on two aspects of the labour market
assimilation of immigrants. First, we examine immigrants’ employment
assimilation as captured by changes in the employment probability differ-
ential between similar immigrants and natives as immigrants’ stay in Spain
lengthens. This issue has been treated, among others, by Bevelander and
Nielsen (2001) in Sweden, and Wheatly Price (1999) and Clark and Lindley
(2005) in the UK. Second, we look at the assimilation occupation-wise of
employed immigrants. We rank occupations on the basis of their average
earnings according to the 2002 Spanish Earnings Structure Survey. Subse-
quently, we analyse immigrants’ occupational assimilation as their residency
in Spain lengthens relative to similarly skilled natives. The analysis is carried
out separately by gender so as to uncover differences in the economic adap-
tation of male and female immigrants. In addition, we differentiate immi-
grants according to their place of origin. In our sample, approximately 14
per cent of immigrants come from EU15 countries, about 14 per cent from
European countries outside the EU15, as much as 20 per cent from Africa
and the vast majority (about 49 per cent of immigrants) from Latin
America.
The article is organized as follows. The next section describes the recent
trends in immigration in the Spanish case and provides a general character-
ization of recent immigrants. Section 3 discusses the methodology and
section 4 describes the data used for the analysis. Section 5 presents the
results and section 6 concludes the study.
2. Immigration in Spain
Recent Immigration Trends
Spain has been traditionally a country of emigrants. During the 1850–1953
period, approximately 3.5 million Spaniards left for the Americas from
regions such as Galicia, Asturias and the Canary Islands. Argentina,
Uruguay, Brazil and Cuba were some of the most popular destinations of
these emigrants. Spanish migrants also went to Africa from areas such as
Murcia and the Balearic Islands, although to a lesser extent. However, Spain
witnessed some significant changes in its migration patterns during the
258 British Journal of Industrial Relations
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2007.
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