Complements or substitutes? Task specialization by gender and nativity in Spain

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E S ABSTRACT Complements or Substitutes? Task Specialization by Gender and Nativity in Spain *Learning about the impact of immigration on the labor market outcomes of natives is a topic of major concern for immigrant-receiving countries. There exists an extensive literature evaluating the impact of immigration on the employment and wages of natives in the U.S. Yet, despite the significant degree of occupational segregation by gender regardless of workers' origin, the literature has traditionally treated male and female immigrants as a homogenous group when examining the impact of immigration on native workers. Instead, using data from Spain, where the immigrant population has risen from 4 percent to 10 percent of the population within a decade, we allow for male and female foreign-born workers to have distinct impacts on the employment patterns of native men and women. This proves to be important as foreign-born workers only seem to have a significant impact on the employment pattern of native workers of the same sex. Furthermore, foreign-born male (female) workers do not appear to be perfect substitutes of similarly skilled native male (female) workers, which may help explain the null or small impacts of immigration on native employment and wages. Instead, immigration appears to have affected the task specialization and occupational distribution of natives of the same gender. IntroductionThe impact of immigration on the host country's labor market is a topic of major concern for many immigrant-receiving nations. There is a large and growing literature on the consequences of migration on the employment and wages of native workers in the U.S. (see Borjas (1994Borjas ( , 1995Borjas ( , 1999Borjas ( , 2003Borjas ( , 2005, Borjas and Katz (2007), Card (1990, 2001, 2005 We first find that, owing to occupational segregation by gender, the impact of immigrant men on the occupational distribution of native women is negligible, just as the impact of immigrant women is insignificant on the occupational distribution of native men.Secondly, foreign-born male (female) workers do not appear to be perfect substitutes of similarly skilled native male (female) workers, which may help explain the null or small impacts of immigration on native employment and wages. Instead, immigration appears to have affected the task specialization and occupational distribution of natives. Spe...

Wage differentials between native and immigrant women in Spain

“…The analysis of gender differences is also relevant for the Spanish case for two reasons: first, as previously mentioned, the literature on wage discrimination with immigrant women is practically inexistent and, second, women account more than half of recent immigration to Spain coming from a wide variety of countries in terms of levels of development, language and cultural proximity to Spaniards but also in terms of the types of jobs they have (AmuedoDorantes and de la Rica, 2011). In fact, although the number of new immigrants has been decreasing in the last years from nearly 700,000 in 2005 to fewer than 25,000 in 2010, the number of women migrating to Spain for work was more than 200,000 until 2010, when it fell to 75,000, a value significantly higher than that observed for men.…”

Raining stones?: Female immigrants in the Spanish labour market

“…These authors present descriptive evidence suggesting that, in raw terms, female immigrants are paid less than nationals and enjoy worse working conditions. 4 In addition, there are also studies on the effect on immigration on natives' labor market outcomes (Carrasco et al, 2008;Amuedo-Dorantes and De la Rica, 2009;González and Ortega, 2011), finding, in general, that immigration has not affected negatively native employment perspectives or wages. of access to the labour market for those people looking for a job; the second, once employed, derives from the risk of earning a lower wage for otherwise equal observable characteristics.…”

Random or Referral Hiring: When Social Connections Matter

“…They also find that the high density of an ethnic group (such as Hispanic) produces a secondary important effect: Hispanic managers hire more Hispanics and fewer whites than a white manager would do. 1 In the light of the previous results, Spain is an interesting case study for testing the importance of the referral hiring practice when different ethnic groups of workers coexist. Due to the huge flow of immigration that Spain has had in the last ten years the labor market composition has experienced important changes.…”