Wage assimilation of immigrants and internal migrants: the role of linguistic distance

Abstract

The paper investigates the wage assimilation of foreign immigrants and internal migrants in Italy, comparing them with stayers. Control for selection in out-migration is performed using a new duration version of the Heckman correction and taking into account both return migration and moves to other destinations. Internal migrants experience only minor wage differences when compared with stayers. By contrast, foreign immigrants earn about 8% less than stayers and internal migrants at the beginning of their careers, and the wage gap increases over time. Both language distance and job segmentation contribute to immigrants' lack of wage assimilation.

Features of personal income inequality before and during the crisis: an analysis of Italian regions

“…Migrant individuals have a disadvantage with respect to nationals about their income in all quantiles, as expected. At the bottom and median levels, migrants suffered an even stronger disadvantage in the crisis year (Strøm et al, 2018). However, the highest gap with nationals in terms of income class rests on the top quantile in both years.…”

“…Card (2001) and Ottaviano and Peri (2012) document the role of migrations to increase local and nationwide inequality. In Italy, similarly to elsewhere in Europe, migrant workers are largely concentrated in low skilled and low-paid jobs even when highly educated (Strøm, Piazzalunga, Venturini, & Villosio, 2018). The recession heavily affected those jobs, but the growth of foreign employment, although lower than its pre-crisis values, continued to be positive even when the GDP growth rate turned negative (Figari & Fiorio, 2015;.…”

The Intergenerational Transmission of Female Labour Force Participation by Gender among Native and Immigrant Europeans: A Focus on Religion

“…Additionally, data may be biased by selectivity. For example, in the European Social Survey only migrants who speak the receiving country's language are interviewed and these migrants are presumably more integrated (Chiswick & Miller, 2002;Strøm et al, 2018).…”

Leveraging regional immigration and immigration diversity for financing crowdfunding projects

“…Some studies suggest that greater diversity may hinder knowledge spillovers, particularly where there is cultural distance. Cultural differences can create problems for integration due to linguistic distance and lower communication skills (Strøm et al, 2018) and thus also affect the capability of knowledge transfer (Sarala & Vaara, 2010). Cultural differences may also increase communication costs and lower trust, hampering innovation and new firm creation (Beugelsdijk et al, 2019;Churchill, 2017;Sobel et al, 2010).…”