Early career trajectories of first- and second-generation migrant graduates of professional university

Abstract

This study explores how the careers of professional university graduates with a firstor second-generation non-Western migrant background evolve within the first four to eight years after graduation, as compared to their Dutch native peers. We find that in the first year after graduation, while holding constant background characteristics, both firstand second-generation migrants experienced lower employment chances, more skill mismatches and lower job satisfaction than natives. No wage differences could be observed between migrants and natives. Although the differences between firstand second-generation migrants appeared to be small in the short term, a follow-up survey four to eight years after graduation revealed evidence that second-generationbut not first-generationmigrants improved their situation overall. They maintained earnings parity with natives, and narrowed the gap in terms of job satisfaction, skill match, and to a somewhat lesser extent employment chances. Although the first generation eliminated the gap with respect to natives in terms of employment chances, they continued to show lower job satisfaction and opened up a wage gap as compared to their native Dutch peers. This suggests that early-career gaps for first-generation migrants are enduring and cannot easily be resolved.

Breaking down the barriers: educational paths, labour market outcomes and wellbeing of children of immigrants

“…The assimilation perspective is also questioned in this special issue by Belfi et al (2021). Focusing on professional higher education graduates in the Netherlands and using a large dataset on recent Dutch college graduates who entered the labour market in the years 2007 through 2017, the authors compared the early career trajectories of firstand second-generation non-Western ethnic-minority graduates with those of natives.…”

“…Regarding higher educated people, Belfi et al (2021) suggest that employers can obtain higher benefits by being aware of a large and underutilised reserve of highly qualified young people with migratory backgrounds. At the same time, they point out that it would be beneficial to the labour market to enhance diversity by attracting children of immigrants to fields of study in which they are currently underrepresented, such as education and health studies.…”

Moving Up the Social Ladder? Wages of First- and Second-Generation Immigrants from Developing Countries

“…Algan et al (2010), Hammarstedt (2009) and Rooth and Ekberg (2003) find that in Germany and Sweden, there is no wage improvement across generations for immigrants from developing countries. 11 By contrast, Belfi et al (2021) show that in the Netherlands, among recent graduates, there is wage parity between Dutch natives and immigrants from developing countries across two generations. More nuanced findings have emerged for France, the United Kingdom and the United States, where although S-G immigrants from developing countries receive higher wages than their F-G peers, the former still experience immigrant-native wage gaps (e.g.…”

Mentorship Practices and Research Productivity Among Early-Career Educational Psychologists in Universities

“…In order to explain the pervasiveness of research on ECRs, other scholars have studied professional identity (Karaharju-Suvanto et al, 2021), stress and financial selfefficacy (Dickson et al, 2020), work-life balance (Gutman, 2020;Krilid et al, 2018) career trajectory (Belfi, 2021;Emmanouil et al, 2017), lived experiences (Caretta, 2018;Whipp & Geronime, 2017), doctoral teaching development (Connolly et al, 2018), school loans/educational debt (Rothstein & Rouse, 2011;Zhang, 2013), career progression (Goldacre et al, 2010), and the pathway choices (Carrico et al, 2012) of ECRs. However, some studies with a focus on early-career researchers have considered several aspects of mentorship such as information mentorship (Al Shebli et al, 2020), mentorship experiences (Kay et al, 2009;Lalani et al, 2018;Mgaiwa & Kapinga, 2021), workplace resources (Perumalswami et al, 2020), effective mentorship (Diggs-Andrews et al, 2021), online mentorship (Bielczyk et al, 2019), supporting early-career mentorship (Kwamie & Jalaghonia, 2020), research mentorship (Hernandez-Lee & Pieroway, 2018Van Schalkwyk et al, 2017), induction and mentorship programs (Weldon, 2018), and also peer mentoring programs (Brody et al, 2016).…”