From the Extent of Segregation to its Consequences in Terms of Wellbeing

We offer a reflection on the measurement of segregation, gathering methodological contributions from both sociology and economics, and we use some of them to explore occupational segregation by gender and nativity in Spain. Our goal is to offer a guide to the tools that can be used in empirical analysis, connecting them with theoretical discussions. Our empirical analysis shows that the occupational segregation of immigrant women is a more intense phenomenon than that of native-born women or immigrant men, although it decreased significantly over the period 2006-2024. Despite this decline, immigrant women still tend to cluster in low-paying occupations to a much greater extent than immigrant men and native-born women. Moreover, their occupational sorting places them at a great disadvantage even after controlling for basic attributes. Unlike them, most of the segregation of immigrant men that we observe is a consequence of their lower educational attainments. Once we control for basic attributes, the concentration of immigrant men in low-paying occupations is substantially reduced, although their hourly wages remain lower than those of their native peers. As opposed to immigrant women and men, native-born women tend to cluster in occupations with wages slightly above the national average, although this wage advantage vanishes once we control for characteristics. Native-born women earn lower hourly wages than their male peers (especially after removing the composition effect) due to both differences in their occupational distributions and wage disparities within occupations. The gender gap is larger among natives than among immigrants.