Do better pre-migration skills accelerate immigrants’ wage assimilation?
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In: Labour Economics, Vol. 30, No. 1, 01.10.2014, p. 212-222.
Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Do better pre-migration skills accelerate immigrants’ wage assimilation?
AU - Hirsch, Boris
AU - Jahn, Elke J.
AU - Toomet, Ott
AU - Hochfellner, Daniela
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2014 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2014/10/1
Y1 - 2014/10/1
N2 - This paper analyzes wage assimilation of ethnic German immigrants to Germany using unique administrative data that include an administrative estimate of immigrants' expected wage in Germany at the time of migration. We find that a 10% higher wage potential translates into a 1.6% higher wage in Germany when also controlling for educational attainment, thus pointing at partial transferability of pre-migration skills to the host country's labor market. We also document that wage assimilation is significantly accelerated for immigrants with higher wage potentials. Our results are both in line with complementarities between pre-migration skills and host country-specific human capital and a U-shaped pattern of immigrants' job mobility with initial downgrading and subsequent upgrading.
AB - This paper analyzes wage assimilation of ethnic German immigrants to Germany using unique administrative data that include an administrative estimate of immigrants' expected wage in Germany at the time of migration. We find that a 10% higher wage potential translates into a 1.6% higher wage in Germany when also controlling for educational attainment, thus pointing at partial transferability of pre-migration skills to the host country's labor market. We also document that wage assimilation is significantly accelerated for immigrants with higher wage potentials. Our results are both in line with complementarities between pre-migration skills and host country-specific human capital and a U-shaped pattern of immigrants' job mobility with initial downgrading and subsequent upgrading.
KW - Economics
KW - Ethnic Germans
KW - Labor market assimilation
KW - Migration
KW - Transferability of human capital
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84910086312&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/3f2b6664-b7f8-3e7d-b75d-c66ad169905d/
U2 - 10.1016/j.labeco.2014.04.004
DO - 10.1016/j.labeco.2014.04.004
M3 - Journal articles
VL - 30
SP - 212
EP - 222
JO - Labour Economics
JF - Labour Economics
SN - 0927-5371
IS - 1
ER -