Do Equal Qualifications Yield Equal Rewards for Immigrants in the Labour Market?

Abstract

<jats:p> Using a correspondence field experiment, the study reported in this article has investigated if immigrant job applicants with equivalent qualifications are treated differently in the Finnish labour market. The study consists of 5000 job applications that were sent out to 1000 advertised positions by five applicants of Finnish, English, Iraqi, Russian and Somali backgrounds, who differed only in their names. The findings show that applicants of immigrant origin receive significantly fewer invitations for a job interview than the native candidate, even if they possess identical language proficiency, education and vocational diplomas. However, the extent of discrimination is not equally distributed among the immigrant groups. Rather, job applicants from non-European backgrounds seem to suffer a significantly greater labour-market penalty. The findings clearly suggest that, despite anti-discrimination legislation and measures aimed at promoting equal employment opportunities, discrimination continues to remain a serious barrier to immigrants’ labour-market integration in a Nordic welfare society. </jats:p>

Lived Experience Related to the COVID-19 Pandemic among Arabic-, Russian- and Somali-Speaking Migrants in Finland

“…Russian speakers were especially distressed about the economic consequences and uncertainty of the situation. In Finland, Russian speakers have a better socio-economic standing compared with Somali and Arabic speakers, many of whom have refugee backgrounds and face more discrimination in the job market [ 22 ]. Thus, the distress of our Russian-speaking respondents may reflect their ‘fear of falling’: the relatively wealthy are more concerned about economic instability than are those with lower incomes [ 31 ].…”

“…This population group is generally young: approximately 44% are under 20 years of age, and less than 9% are over 49 [ 18 ]. Several studies have reported that Somalis in Finland commonly face discrimination and racism in their everyday lives [ 21 ] and in the labour market [ 22 ]; their unemployment rate has remained high.…”

“…Over 36% are under 20 years of age, and 12% are 50 or over [ 18 ]. Like Russians and Somalis, Iraqis have also faced challenges in getting employment [ 22 ].…”

What Makes Resources Capital? The Labour Market Integration of Highly Skilled Japanese in Finland

“…This viewpoint indicates that the occupational attainment process of HSMs can be seen as their efforts to make capital out of resources and capital formation results from the dynamics between such efforts and the host country's labour market structure. The empirical study presented in this article opposes a pessimistic view that HSMs of the non-Western origin are naturally subject to discrimination or overqualification when seeking employment in a host country (see Ahmad 2020). But it is by no means supporting an optimistic perspective that HSMs are always able to get a job in a host country owing to their competence.…”

“…This is also applied to the case of foreign students in Finland, in which the Finnish language and cultural knowledge on the Finnish working life are used to screen out the job application of international students (Alho 2020). In addition, white migrants from the Western European continent or North America are more likely to be accepted than non-white migrants from the non-Western countries (Ahmad 2020;Alho 2020;Koskela 2014). Koskela (2014: 27) furthers this discussion by identifying the linkage between ethnicity and employment in Finland, such as Indian IT or African cleaners.…”