Abstract
Activity and employment rates for immigrant women in many industrialized countries display a great variability across national groups. The aim of this paper is to assess whether this well-known fact is due to a voluntary decision (i.e. large reservation wages by the immigrants) or to an involuntary process in that the labor market evaluation of their skills is low. This is done by estimating the reservation wages for each individual in the dataset. Our results show that low activity and employment rates for certain national groups are not associated with high reservation wages. This implies that low participation should not be interpreted as a voluntary decision.
Highlights
The immigrant labor force makes an essential contribution to the growth and development of most of the industrialised countries
In Appendix 2 we provide the results for self-reported reservation wages in the Italian labor Force Survey (LFS)
We focus on the differences between the Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC) group and two nationalities that display the lowest activity and employment rates: Near East and North African countries (NENAC) and Central Asia
Summary
The immigrant labor force makes an essential contribution to the growth and development of most of the industrialised countries. The share of immigrants over total population is quite high for economically advanced countries and it ranges from 6 per cent in Italy to almost 25 per cent in Canada. In many European countries, characterised by a rapidly aging population, the economic integration of immigrants is a necessary condition for the achievement of the Lisbon targets of full employment and sustainable growth under the European Employment Strategy. Labor market integration for immigrant men is not generally an issue, employment rates for women are often low and characterised by great variability according to country of origin. The second is a skill mismatch on the labor market. In this case, immigrants are willing to work outside the family but their human capital does not satisfy local employers’ requirements
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
