Labour market careers of immigrants in Germany and the United Kingdom

Abstract

This article examines the employment careers of immigrants as compared with those of the native-born in Germany and the United Kingdom using existing longitudinal data from the German Socioeconomic Panel and the British Household Panel Study. Results of the sequence analysis show that in both countries employment career sequences of immigrants are similarly remote from those of native-born men. Further analysis reveals that long and frequent spells of unemployment are behind this dissimilarity in both countries. Results of the pairwise Optimal Matching analysis of the occupational career sequences, however, show that immigrants in the UK and Germany pursue largely different occupational paths, the former having occupational careers similar to those of the native-born, the latter being segmented in manual, mostly unskilled, jobs.