Contrasting Trajectories of Labor-Market Integration Between Migrant Women in Western and Southern Europe

Abstract

The labor-market assimilation hypothesis predicts poorer initial labor-market outcomes among immigrants followed by convergence toward the outcomes of the native-born working-age population with time lived in the receiving country. We investigate the applicability of this hypothesis to migrant women’s labor-force participation in Europe. We compare labor-force participation rate (LFPR) gaps between migrant and native-born women in nine European countries, and examine how these LFPR gaps change with migrant women’s additional years in the receiving country. Consistent with the assimilation hypothesis, the LFPRs of migrant women in the “old” migrant-receiving countries of Western Europe begin much lower than for otherwise-comparable native-born women and converge, although not always completely, toward the LFPRs of native-born women with additional years lived in the country. In the “new” migrant-receiving countries of Southern Europe, however, the LFPRs of migrant women at all durations of residence are similar to those of native-born women. Additional descriptive evidence of high unemployment and under-employment and of difficulty achieving family work balance among Western European migrant women points toward receiving-country context as a major explanation for these empirical patterns.