Labour Market Disadvantages of Second‐Generation Turks and Moroccans in the Netherlands: Before and during the Great Recession
| Date | 01 April 2018 |
| Published date | 01 April 2018 |
| Author | Dirk Witteveen,Richard Alba |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12411 |
Labour Market Disadvantages of Second-
Generation Turks and Moroccans in the
Netherlands: Before and during the Great
Recession
Dirk Witteveen* and Richard Alba*
ABSTRACT
This study uses two waves of panel data to examine the labour market integration of children
of Moroccan and Turkish immigrants in the Netherlands. The data show a persisting educa-
tional attainment gap in terms of high school completion and post-secondary attendance. The
analyses of prime working-age respondents indicate substantial ethnic penalties that accrue
from the hiring process: controlling for educational background and demographics, the young-
est cohort of the second generation is less likely to have employment than the native Dutch.
We improve on earlier research on ethnic penalties in the Dutch labour market by including
measures of precarious work –the chance of avoiding of non-contracted work –and by com-
paring minorities’standing in a pre-recession (2009) and a peak-recession (2013) labour mar-
ket. The results indicate increasing employment disadvantages for both second-generation
groups at a time of labour surplus.
INTRODUCTION
Like a number of other Western European countries, the Netherlands has experienced large
waves of guest worker immigration in the post-World War II period, arising from a manual
labour shortage in combination with rapid economic expansion. Although recruitment by various
labour-intensive industries started in Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Greece, most guest workers
came from Turkey and Morocco. Subsequently, many of them decided to settle permanently in
the Netherlands, engendering family reunification immigration throughout the 1970s and the
1980s.
Today, Turks and Moroccans are the largest non-Western immigrant groups in the Netherlands,
though they are closely followed in size by the Surinamese, a post-colonial group (Centraal Bureau
voor de Statistiek, 2012). A very large proportion of the Moroccan and Turkish first generations
remained stuck at the bottom of the Dutch labour market, mainly because of their generally low
initial socio-economic status and lack of human capital. In addition, they suffered from the direct
and indirect consequences of discrimination and a lack of language skills (Dagevos, 2007; Huijnk,
2011). The children of these immigrants went to school in the Netherlands, built up human capital
and Dutch language skills, and started to enter the labour market in the 1990s. Largely because of
* City University of New York
doi: 10.1111/imig.12411
©2017 The Authors
International Migration ©2017 IOM
International Migration Vol. 56 (2) 2018
ISSN 0020-7985Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
the low socio-economic status of their parents, the oldest cohorts among the second-generation
were overrepresented in the lower rungs of the stratified Dutch school system (Crul, 2013) and,
consequently, have entered lesser ranked occupations and occupational fields.
This study assesses the situation of the youngest Moroccan and Turkish second generations with
the latest data. This focus is justified by evidence that minority educational levels have been
improving over time (Crul et al., 2009), suggesting that younger cohorts may not face the same
hardships as their older brothers and sisters. Our main concern is with the extent to which the sec-
ond generation has been able to obtain a secure position in the Dutch labour market. Since educa-
tional credentials are generally assumed to provide the major channel for upward social mobility by
otherwise disadvantaged groups in an economically advanced society, we start with an evaluation
of the state of educational inequality between the children of immigrants and the non-immigrant
Dutch.
We then proceed to an examination of the labour market outcomes of the youngest prime work-
ing-age cohorts of the Turkish and Moroccan second-generation who have completed the educa-
tion-to-work transition. Using the first (2009) and second (2013) waves of the Netherlands
Longitudinal Life Course Study (NELLS), we study the probabilities of having employment and
having a contracted job, as well as the occupational prestige of any job. Most importantly, these
observations coincide with a pre-recession measurement and a peak-recession measurement, which
allows us to measure the impact of an economic downturn on the employment chances of the two
ethno-racial minorities relative to the non-immigrant Dutch.
As known from studies on second-generations in Western Europe, the children of immigrants
often struggle to find employment in the early-career phase and to obtain stable jobs thereafter.
As these disadvantages are found after controlling for education, some scholars consider them
“ethnic penalties”(Heath et al., 2008). In the Dutch context, sharp majority-minority discrepan-
cies in employment chances have been found in previous studies on Dutch-Moroccans and
Dutch-Turks (Andriessen et al., 2012b). Moreover, labour market discrimination has become
increasingly relevant in Dutch politics and, consequently, in discussions about diversity policy
in the public sector. As younger cohorts of the second generation continue to obtain more edu-
cation than older cohorts, the question of how much and what kind of labour market disadvan-
tages (at hiring, stable employment, occupations) are experienced in the early career phase
remains relevant.
The state of the macro-economy may play a role in determining relative positions in the
labour market. In particular, the Great Recession has shifted employment relations for virtually
all groups of workers (Hoynes et al., 2012). However, little is known about the extent to which
the recession has impacted the existing labour market disadvantages of the second-generation
vis-
a-vis their peers of non-immigrant descent. A pre- vs. peak-recession comparison therefore
expands our knowledge of the potential impact of an economic shock on existing inequalities
in their broadest terms. But such an assessment will also contribute to the scholarship of the
position of specific ethno-racial groups in Western Europe –in our case the native-born chil-
dren of guest workers from Moroccan and Turkey. Furthermore, by analysing the changes in
the different types of labour market inequalities –access to employment, full-time employment
chances, occupational level –during a recession, we approach a better understanding of labour
market queuing along ethno-racial lines.
Our analyses show that the second-generation Moroccans and Turks continue to lag educationally
behind their native Dutch counterparts. They also continue to be structurally disadvantaged in hir-
ing –in terms of employment chances and employment stability (contracts) –net of their educa-
tion. Our data further indicate that the ethnic gap increased during the recession (2009–2013).
However, concentrating on labour market deficits that accrue after the hiring process, we find mar-
ginal evidence for children of immigrants being employed in lower occupational ranks.
98 Witteveen and Alba
©2017 The Authors. International Migration ©2017 IOM
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