The labor market integration of immigrant women in Europe: context, theory, and evidence

Abstract

In this overview, we seek to provide a comprehensive resource for scholars of female immigrant labor market integration in Europe, to act both as a reference and a roadmap for future studies in this domain. We begin by presenting a contextual history of immigration to and within Europe since the Second World War, before outlining the major theoretical assumptions about immigrant women’s labor market disadvantage. We then synthesize the empirical findings from quantitative studies published between 2000 and 2020 and analyze how they line up with the theoretical predictions. We supplement the review with descriptive analyses using data from 2019, which expose any discrepancies between the current situation in European countries and the situation during the time periods considered in the reviewed studies. Our review has three main take-aways. First, the theoretically relevant determinants of immigrant women’s labor market integration are generally supported by empirical evidence, but the unexplained heterogeneity that remains in many cases between immigrant women and other groups on the labor market calls for more systematic and comprehensive investigations. Second, quantitative studies which take a holistic approach to studying the labor market disadvantages of immigrant women—and all the considerations related to their gender and nativity that this entails—are rare in this body of literature, and future studies should address this. Third, fruitful avenues for future contributions to this field include expanding on certain overlooked outcomes, like immigrant women’s self-employment, as well as geographic regions that until now have received little attention, especially by employing the most recent data.

Intersections and Commonalities: Using Matching to Decompose Wage Gaps by Gender and Nativity in Germany

“…In particular, we glossed over most of the heterogeneity in our immigrant sample and just pointed to some suggestive differences in our results when we distinguished EU from non-EU immigrants or excluded refugees. Immigrants arrive with varying resources, are subject to varying immigration regulations, and face varying discrimination—all of which affect their labor market position and wages (Schieckoff & Sprengholz, 2021). Incorporating further heterogeneity, however, also means that comparability issues are more likely to arise and that we approach the limits to the complexity we can productively handle in a comparative setting.…”

“…One important driver is overqualification, because individuals in jobs which do not harness their qualifications generate below-potential wages. The additional occupational constraints that immigrants face in comparison to natives go along with a generally higher risk of overqualification (Kracke & Klug, 2021), but risks are larger for non-EU compared to EU immigrants, and for immigrant women compared to immigrant men throughout Europe (Rubin et al, 2008;Schieckoff & Sprengholz, 2021). One reason for this pattern is that many female-dominated jobs (e.g., teachers, nurses, and social workers) have stricter requirements with regard to country-specific social and communication skills or licenses (Kosyakova et al, 2021).…”

“…Studies across various geographical settings, including Germany, have shown that, on average, women earn lower wages than men and immigrants earn lower wages than natives, so that typically native men occupy the best and immigrant women the worst position in terms of wages (Algan et al, 2010; Blau & Kahn, 2017; Browne & Misra, 2003; Schieckoff & Sprengholz, 2021). These gaps have been traced back to four main explanations.…”

“…Historically, women's lower educational attainment was an important driver of the gender wage gap in the United States and Europe among natives, but over time women have caught up or even surpassed men in terms of education (Quenzel & Hurrelmann, 2010). Systematic variation in individual resources matters more for nativity wage gaps, because the resources immigrants bring with them in terms of human capital and host-country-specific knowledge are very selective and strongly determined by migration regimes in place (Dustmann & Görlach, 2015; Schieckoff & Sprengholz, 2021). In Germany, the educational attainment of immigrants was much lower compared to natives especially during the labor recruitment phase (1950s−1970s) and the subsequent family reunification period, but for more recent cohorts the share of tertiary degrees is higher among immigrant men and women than among native men and women (Sprengholz et al, 2021).…”

Intersecting Inequalities in Education and on the Labour Market: Gender and Migration Background in Comparative Perspective

“…The relevance of gender and migration background for education and labour market attainment is thus clear and widely acknowledged. However, in the quantitative empirical literature these two sources of inequality are typically studied separately from each other (see Schieckoff/Sprengholz 2021). Much of the research on gender gaps in education and on the labour market focuses on the non-migrant population only (e.g., Blossfeld/Rohwer 1997;Stadelmann-Steffen 2008;Van der Vleuten 2021), while studies of immigrants in Western labour markets -even when they do include immigrant women -do not always include nonmigrant women as reference group (e.g., Stichs 2008), or they present separate analyses for men and women (e.g., Adsera/Chiswick 2007;Kogan 2012;Van Tubergen, Maas and Flap 2004).…”