Premium
The Immigrant Earnings Disadvantage across the Earnings and Skills Distributions: The Case of Immigrants from the EU's New Member States
Author(s) -
Barrett Alan,
McGuinness Séamus,
O'Brien Martin
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
british journal of industrial relations
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.665
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1467-8543
pISSN - 0007-1080
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8543.2010.00835.x
Subject(s) - earnings , immigration , disadvantage , workforce , demographic economics , wage , distribution (mathematics) , labour economics , member states , economics , political science , european union , economic growth , accounting , law , mathematical analysis , mathematics , economic policy
We analyse the earnings of immigrants from the EU's new member states (NMS) using a large‐scale dataset with information on employees in Ireland. We find that the average earnings difference between these immigrants and natives is between 10 and 18 per cent, depending on the controls used. However, the difference is found to be lower for people at the lower end of the earnings distribution. It is also generally lower for people at the lower end of the education distribution. We find mixed evidence on whether unions have an impact on the wages of immigrants from the NMS, although such immigrants appear to suffer a wage penalty as a result of being in firms that provided training to a significant proportion of their workforce.