Do non-natives catch-up with the natives in terms of earnings in Jordan? New evidence from a distributional analysis

Abstract

ABSTRACT Using a nationally representative dataset extracted from the Jordanian Labor Market Panel Survey (JLMPS) for the two years 2010 and 2016, we apply both the standard Oaxaca–Blinder and quantile decomposition approaches to provide a more comprehensive distributional analysis of the native-immigrant wage differentials in Jordan over the period 2010–2016. By assessing the contribution of a rich set of labor market characteristics to the distributional wage differentials between the two groups and examining the extent to which such differentials reflect marginalization and discrimination against non-natives in Jordan, we find some interesting results that may hold significant policy implications for policymakers and labor market participants. These results reveal an increase in the mean native-immigrant wage gap over time and a relative intensification, throughout the wage distribution, of discrimination against immigrants among middle-wage workers. Compositional differences, primarily in education, between the two groups explain most of the observed wage gap over the period.