IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eso/journl/v51y2020i3p357-380.html

How did Immigrants Fare in the Irish Labour Market over the Great Recession?

Author

Listed:
  • Elish Kelly

    (The Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin
    Trinity College Dublin
    Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn)

  • Seamus McGuinness

    (The Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin
    Trinity College Dublin
    Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn)

  • Philip J. O’Connell

    (UCD Geary Institute, Dublin)

  • Alberto González Pandiella

    (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Paris)

  • David Haugh

    (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Paris)

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of the Great Recession on labour market outcomes for Irish immigrants compared to natives and how this relationship evolved afterwards. We find that the employment chances of immigrants decreased significantly over the recession and, on average, this persisted during the recovery. We also find that their relative unemployment risk increased, while there was substantial variation in these patterns between immigrants. Immigrants from the United Kingdom fared particularly badly during the recession. Their unfavourable outcomes intensified in the recovery, particularly among non-naturalised UK immigrants. African immigrants showed the highest employment penalties and unemployment risks during the recession but in the recovery these negative outcomes were confined to naturalised African immigrants. The recovery trends appear to be related to composition effects, as many refugees with weak labour market attachment became naturalised citizens during the recession. This suggests that the difficulties some immigrants experience in the labour market would be underestimated without taking due account of naturalisation processes.

Suggested Citation

  • Elish Kelly & Seamus McGuinness & Philip J. O’Connell & Alberto González Pandiella & David Haugh, 2020. "How did Immigrants Fare in the Irish Labour Market over the Great Recession?," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 51(3), pages 357-380.
    • Handle: RePEc:eso:journl:v:51:y:2020:i:3:p:357-380
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.esr.ie/article/view/1517/280
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Cormac Ó Gráda & Kevin Hjortshøj O'Rourke, 2022. "The Irish economy during the century after partition," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 75(2), pages 336-370, May.
    3. McGinnity, Frances & Enright, Shannen & Quinn, Emma & Maître, Bertrand & Privalko, Ivan & Darmody, Merike & Polakowski, Michal, 2020. "Monitoring report on integration 2020," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number BKMNEXT403.
    4. Groarke, Sarah & Dunbar, R is n, 2020. "Pathways to citizenship through naturalisation in Ireland," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number RS116.
    5. Kelly, Elish & Maitre, Bertrand, 2025. "The Labour Market Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Individuals with Disabilities: The Case of Ireland," IZA Discussion Papers 18088, IZA Network @ LISER.
    6. Barrett, Alan & McGinnitty, Frances & Quinn, Emma (ed.), 2017. "Monitoring Report on Integration 2016," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number BKMNEXT330.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eso:journl:v:51:y:2020:i:3:p:357-380. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Aedin Doris (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.esr.ie .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.