US and them: Job quality differences between natives and immigrants in Europe
| Published date | 01 April 2023 |
| Author | Carlos García‐Serrano,Virginia Hernanz |
| Date | 01 April 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12998 |
154
|
International Migration. 2023;61:154–178.
wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/imig
Received: 30 Au gust 2021
|
Revised: 24 Januar y 2022
|
Accepted: 17 Februar y 2022
DOI: 10.1111/imig.12998
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
US and them: Job quality differences between
natives and immigrants in Europe
Carlos García- Serrano | Virginia Hernanz
This is an open ac cess article und er the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial- NoDerivs License, which
permits us e and distributio n in any medium, provid ed the original wor k is properly cited , the use is non- commercial and no
modificat ions or adaptatio ns are made.
© 2022 The Auth ors. International Migration published by John W iley & Sons Ltd on behalf o f International Or ganization for
Migration.
Departm ent of Economics, Uni versidad de
Alcalá, Ma drid, Spain
Correspondence
Carlos Gar cía- Serrano, Depa rtment of
Economics, U niversidad de Alc alá, Madrid,
Spain.
Email: carlos.garcia@uah.es
Funding information
No funding was r eceived to assist wit h the
preparatio n of this manuscript .
Abstract
Using microdata f rom the European Union L abour Force
Survey (EU- LFS) and aggregate indicators of lab our mar-
ket institutions, this article compa res t he jo b qua lity of
native and non- native workers across European countries
and analyses the imp act of the institutional setting s on the
job quality differential between both grou ps. The LFS is
used to measure a job quality index for the pe riod 2005–
2017. We find that some immigrant groups fare worse tha n
natives, the contribution of the “compositio n ef fect” to
expl ain this differ ential is la rge, and the inst itutio nal fram e-
work affect s the immigration gap in job quality. In particu-
lar, some labour market institutions (more centralized wage
bargaining, stricter employment protection legislation)
tend to be detr imental for immigrants re lative to nat ives,
while integration policies seem to work well in reduc ing
these differences.
KEYWORDS
European countr ies, immigrant workers , job quality, labour
market institutions
|
155
US AND THEM: JOB Q UALITY DIFFERENCE S BETWEEN NATIVES
AND IMMIGRANTS IN EUROPE
INTRODUCTION
The degree of compet ition in the labour market bet ween natives and non- natives has be en extensively studied i n
the econo mic literature (Greenwood & H unt, 1995; Lewis, 2013). A lthough many e mpirical studi es suggest t hat
the degre e of substitutio n between both g roups in low- skille d jobs is small, oth er works find evi dence to the con-
tra ry.1 This i ssue has far- reaching consequen ces. On the one hand, the m ain argument in favour of imm igration is
that non- native workers take jobs of lower quality that natives do not want to accept. On the contrary, the usual
argument agai nst immigration is that non - natives occupy jobs that natives wo uld be willing to take.
Therefore, an equal willingn ess for both gr oups to work in jobs that do n ot differ in qu ality would gau ge the
existence of competiti on between natives an d immigrant s. In th is sense, analysing the differences in the qual-
ity of jobs that both group s of worker s hold sho uld provide a more c omprehensive pi cture of t he nature of an
immigrant's integration i n the labou r market than just lookin g at wages or the incid ence of employ ment/unem-
ployment. Surprisingly enough, the literature comparing the employment quality between native and non- native
workers has not developed mu ch (Díaz- Serrano, 2013). This paper aims at filling this gap in the empi rical literature
regarding im migration and the lab our market by using a job qualit y index (JQI) which only in cludes variables char-
acterizing job s.
At the same time, there is no sys tematic evidence of how instituti onal settings affect th e differences in labour
market outcomes b etween natives and imm igrants. Despite it s importance, the ro le of institutions and po licies in
immigrant integration, in general, and their impact on labo ur market outcomes (including employment quality), in
particular, remains underexplored (Guzi et al., 2015; Huber, 2015). Labour market institutions can contribute (ei-
ther positively or negatively) to job quality diffe rences, by increasing or decreasing it over time and by producing
different imp acts between segm ents of workers.
In prin ciple, societi es with m ore encompassing , inclusive institutions and more generous welfa re and so cial
policy (providing assistance in labour market t ransitions) wo uld exhibit better labour ma rket outcomes , as t he
“varieties of capita lism” (VoC) literature argues (Hall & Soskice, 2001; Hanké et al., 2007). In this setting , two types
of advan ced economie s, “libera l market econo mies” (LME) a nd “coordinate d market econ omies” (CME), are distin-
guished according to the predominant ways in which firms coordinate with each other and other stakeholders in
different areas of indust rial relations. In this so- called “production regime” model, the hypothesis is that the j ob
quality will be greater in CMEs th an in LMEs, since in the former employer s’ strategy is to commit to long- term
employment r elations. The impli cation is not only better job securi ty but also bet ter job quality in all dimensions
in the CMEs. H owever, countries with less flexible labour market s (with m ore centralized collective bargaining
that compr esses the wag e distribution and stricter employment pr otection regulat ions that redu ce the flows of
job creation and de struction) may favour th e “insiders” and affect ne gatively the outcomes of immi grants relative
to natives. T hus, the impact of institutions on the differential job quality betw een natives and non - natives is not
straightfo rward (see below).
Our study break s new ground by comparing the job qualit y of native and non- native workers across Europ ean
countries and relating t he differ ences bet ween both groups to th e prevailin g institut ional fra meworks. Given
this objec tive, the ar ticle sets out to examine the following questions. F irst, are t here difference s in the qu ality
of employmen t between natives and immigrants? S econd, to what ex tent are these g aps explained by the “com-
position effect,” that is, the difference i n the char acteristics of workers and jobs ra ther than differences i n the
average employmen t quality that may influence the qualit y outcomes? And third, what is the role of institutio ns in
explaining th ese job quality gaps?
Thus, we first analyse whether the quality of jobs held by immigrants and natives differ. We do this by calcu-
lating the raw differe ntial in job quality and estimating OLS reg ressions by country. Furthermore , since the quality
of employment is a continuous variable, we use methods to decompose the various comp onents of the differences
in jo b quality between native and non- native workers across countries. This al lows us to exami ne the role of
the “compositio n effect” in explaining job qua lity differential s within countries . Finally, we analyse the impact of
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