IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/applec/v53y2021i13p1551-1571.html

Wage discrimination based on the country of birth: do tenure and product market competition matter?

Author

Listed:
  • Valentine Fays
  • Benoît Mahy
  • François Rycx
  • Mélanie Volral

Abstract

Using a merged employer-employee panel dataset of more than 13,000 firms relative to the Belgian private sector for the 1999–2010 period, this paper aims to quantify wage discrimination against migrant workers based on their countries of birth, with workers’ tenure and firm product market competition as moderating variables. To do so, we specify a wage-setting equation that includes a direct measure of worker productivity. We control for a wide range of worker and firm characteristics, as well as time-invariant unobserved heterogeneity in firms and potential endogeneity in the composition of the workforce. Our results show large disparities in wage discrimination against foreign-born migrants depending on their countries of birth. They also suggest that wage discrimination against migrants vanishes as their firm-specific labour market experience (i.e. tenure) increases and tends to disappear in highly competitive product market situations.

Suggested Citation

  • Valentine Fays & Benoît Mahy & François Rycx & Mélanie Volral, 2021. "Wage discrimination based on the country of birth: do tenure and product market competition matter?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(13), pages 1551-1571, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:applec:v:53:y:2021:i:13:p:1551-1571
    DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2020.1838431
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00036846.2020.1838431
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00036846.2020.1838431?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    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. Valentine Fays & Benoît Mahy & François Rycx, 2023. "Wage differences according to workers' origin: The role of working more upstream in GVCs," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 37(2), pages 319-342, June.
    2. V. Jacobs & F. Rycx & M. Volral, 2022. "Wage Effects of Educational Mismatch According to Workers’ Origin: The Role of Demographics and Firm Characteristics," De Economist, Springer, vol. 170(4), pages 459-501, November.
    3. Valentine Jacobs & Kevin Pineda-Hernández & François Rycx & Mélanie Volral, 2023. "Does over-education raise productivity and wages equally? The moderating role of workers’ origin and immigrants’ background," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(6), pages 698-724, November.
    4. Valentine Jacobs, 2021. "Wage Effects of Educational Mismatch According to Workers’ Origin: The Role of Demographics and Firm Characteristics," DULBEA Working Papers 23562, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    5. Andrej Cupák & Pavel Ciaian & d'Artis Kancs, 2021. "Comparing the immigrant-native pay gap: A novel evidence from home and host countries," EERI Research Paper Series EERI RP 2021/05, Economics and Econometrics Research Institute (EERI), Brussels.
    6. Louise Devos & Louis Lippens & Dries Lens & François Rycx & Mélanie Volral & Stijn Baert, 2025. "Labour Market Disadvantages of Citizens with a Migration Background in Belgium: A Systematic Review," De Economist, Springer, vol. 173(1), pages 121-175, March.
    7. Kevin André Pineda-Hernández & François Rycx & Mélanie Volral, 2022. "Moving Up the Social Ladder? Wages of First- and Second-Generation Immigrants from Developing Countries," Working Papers CEB 22-012, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    8. Valentine Fays & Benoît Mahy & François Rycx, 2020. "Upstreamness, wages, and workers’ origin: A review of the literature," Reflets et perspectives de la vie économique, De Boeck Université, vol. 0(2), pages 105-114.
    9. Nicholas Lawson, 2024. "Discrimination and the Fiscal Benefits of Immigration," Working Papers 24-01, Research Group on Human Capital, University of Quebec in Montreal's School of Management.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing
    • D41 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Perfect Competition

    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:taf:applec:v:53:y:2021:i:13:p:1551-1571. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RAEC20 .

    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.