1,721,003 research outputs found
Immigration: The European Experience
Full text linkThis paper first presents a brief historical overview of immigration in Europe. We then provide (and distinguishing between EU and non-EU immigrants) a comprehensive analysis of the skill structures of immigrants and their labor market integration in the different European countries, their position in the wage distribution, and the situation of their children, and discuss the disadvantage of immigrants and their children relative to natives. We show that immigrants – in particular those from non-EU countries – are severely disadvantaged in most countries, even if we compare them to natives with the same measurable skills. We conclude with a discussion of the role of regulations and institutions as one possible mechanism for these findings, and suggest directions for future research.immigration, Europe, integration, institutions
Inequities in immigrants’ access to health care services : disentangling potential barriers
Full text linkPurpose: The purpose of this paper is to empirically assess whether immigrants suffer from unequal access to health care services, that add to prevailing socioeconomic barriers to care. Design/methodology/approach: Using a uniquely rich Italian health survey, the authors estimate the correlation between immigrant status and the probability of accessing health services, conditional on a rich set of individual and territorial characteristics. Findings: Results show that foreigners are more likely to contact emergency services and less likely to visit specialist doctors and use preventive care. Similar results hold for second-generation immigrants. Originality/value: The authors discuss the sources of observed inequities and suggest tentative policy implications to promote equal access
Are political and economic integration intertwined?
No full textEconomic incentives play a key role in the decision to run for office, but little is known on how they shape immigrants’ selection into candidacy. We study this question using a two-period Roy model and show that if returns to labour market experience are higher for migrants than natives, migrants will be less likely to seek office than natives. We empirically assess this prediction using administrative data from Norway, a country with a very liberal regime for participation in local elections. Our results strongly support our theoretical model and indicate that immigrants’ political and economic integration are closely intertwined
What drives the legalization of immigrants?: evidence from IRCA
Full text linkWe develop a model to understand the trade–offs faced by an elected representative in supporting an amnesty when a restrictive immigration policy is in place. We show that an amnesty is more desirable the more restricted are the occupational opportunities of undocumented immigrants and the smaller is the fiscal leakage to undocumented immigrants via the welfare state. Empirical evidence based on the voting behavior of U.S. Congressmen on the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 provides strong support for the predictions of our theoretical model
Illegal immigration: policy perspectives and challenges
Full text linkThe combination of increasing immigration pressures and restrictive policies imperfectly enforced by many destination countries has made illegal immigration widespread. This paper provides an overview of the mechanisms behind the formation of migration policies and how they lead to or they limit the presence of illegal immigrants. We also study how governments deal ex-post with the presence of undocumented foreign workers by introducing immigration amnesties. We review the determinants of their introduction and address their desirability from the point of view of aggregate welfare. As countries in the EU differ substantially in the implementation of both ex-ante and ex-post immigration policies, we emphasize the need for more coordination in the area of migration policy enforcement, both at the border and within each country
The Effect of Immigrant Peers in Vocational Schools
Full text linkThis paper provides new evidence on how the presence of immigrant peers in the classroom affects native student achievement. The analysis is based on longitudinal administrative data on two cohorts of vocational training students in Italy's largest region. Vocational training institutions provide the ideal setting for studying these effects because they attract not only disproportionately high shares of immigrants but also the lowest ability native students. We adopt a value added model, and exploit within-school variation both within and across cohorts for identification. Our results show small negative average effects on maths test scores that are larger for low ability native students, strongly non-linear and only observable in classes with a high (top 20%) immigrant concentration. These outcomes are driven by classes with a high average linguistic distance between immigrants and natives, with no apparent role played by ethnic diversity
Educational achievement of second-generation immigrants : an international comparison
No full textThis paper compares the educational attainment of second-generation immigrants with that of children born to native parents in several OECD countries. We show that the average gap in test scores of children of immigrants and natives differs widely across countries, and is strongly related to achievement differences in the parent generation. The disadvantage of immigrant children reduces, and even disappears for some countries, once we condition on parental background characteristics. A foreign language spoken at home is the single most important factor associated with the achievement gap. An alternative reference group to native children are children born to non-emigrants in the country of origin. We compare mathematics test scores of children of Turkish immigrants in several destination countries, to those of Turkish children in Turkey whose parents have not emigrated. We find that in most host countries, the test score achievement of the children of Turkish immigrants (although being lower than that of their native peers) is higher than that of children of their cohort in the home country. This is conditional and unconditional on parental background characteristics. The higher school- and peer- quality relative to that in the home country is a main determinant of the educational advantage of immigrant children
L’immigrazione irregolare in tempo di crisi
No full textIl lavoro utilizza tre diverse basi di microdati per quantificare l’effetto della recessione economica sugli immigrati irregolari e mettere a confronto i loro esiti occupazionali con quelli sperimentati nello stesso periodo dai nativi e dagli immigrati regolarmente soggiornanti in Italia. Questo è il primo studio a documentare un fortissimo peggioramento degli esiti lavorativi e della condizione abitativa durante la crisi economica iniziata nel 2008 fra gli immigrati privi di regolare permesso di soggiorno. In particolare, l’analisi dimostra che il calo della percentuale di occupati fra i lavoratori stranieri regolari è circa un terzo di quello degli immigrati irregolari. Inoltre, contrariamente a quanto osservato per la componente regolare dell’immigrazione, il calo dell’occupazione colpisce indistintamente entrambi i generi. La popolazione irregolare pare quindi caratterizzata da una particolare vulnerabilità sul mercato del lavoro, che si somma a quella che affligge la popolazione immigrata regolare
The Effect of Immigration along the Distribution of Wages
Full text linkThis paper analyses the effect immigration has on wages of native workers. Unlike most previous work, we estimate wage effects along the distribution of native wages. We derive a flexible empirical strategy that does not rely on pre-allocating immigrants to particular skill groups. In our empirical analysis, we demonstrate that immigrants downgrade considerably upon arrival. As for the effects on native wages, we find a pattern of effects whereby immigration depresses wages below the 20th percentile of the wage distribution, but leads to slight wage increases in the upper part of the wage distribution. This pattern mirrors the evidence on the location of immigrants in the wage distribution. We suggest that possible explanations for the overall slightly positive effect on native wages, besides standard immigration surplus arguments, could involve deviations of immigrant remuneration from contribution to production either because of initial mismatch or immigrant downgrading
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