Explaining the Male Native-Immigrant Employment Gap in Sweden: The Role of Human Capital and Migrant Categories
2018 (English)In: Journal of Population Research, ISSN 1835-9469, Vol. 35, no 4, p. 363-398Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Despite having a celebrated labor market integration policy, the immigrant–native employment gap in Sweden is one of the largest in the OECD. From a cross-country perspective, a key explanation might be migrant admission group composition. In this study we use high-quality detailed Swedish register data to estimate male employment gaps between non-EU/EES labour, family reunification and humanitarian migrants and natives. Moreover, we test if differences in human capital are able to explain rising employment integration heterogeneity. Our results indicate that employment integration is highly correlated with admission category. Interestingly, differences in human capital, demographic and contextual factors seem to explain only a small share of this correlation. Evidence from auxiliary regressions suggests that low transferability of human capital among humanitarian and family migrants might be part of the story. The article highlights the need to understand and account for migrant admission categories when studying employment integration.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Springer, 2018. Vol. 35, no 4, p. 363-398
National Category
Social Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-2193DOI: 10.1007/s12546-018-9206-yISI: 000456402300004Local ID: 26862OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mau-2193DiVA, id: diva2:1398935
2020-02-272020-02-272022-04-25Bibliographically approved