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Estimating the wage premia of refugee immigrants: Lessons from Sweden

Author

Listed:
  • Christopher F. Baum

    (Boston College
    DIW Berlin
    CESIS, KTH Royal Institute of Technology)

  • Hans Lööf

    (CESIS, KTH Royal Institute of Technology)

  • Andreas Stephan

    (Linnaeus University
    DIW Berlin)

  • Klaus F. Zimmermann

    (UNU-MERIT
    Maastricht University
    CEPR
    GLO)

Abstract

This paper examines the wage earnings of fully-employed refugee immigrants in Sweden. Using administrative employer-employee data from 1990 and onwards, about 100,000 refugee immigrants who arrived between 1980 and 1996 and were granted asylum are compared to a matched sample of native-born workers. Employing recentered influence function (RIF) quantile regressions for the period 2011–2015 to wage earnings, the occupational task-based Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition approach shows that refugees perform better than natives at the median wage, controlling for individual and firm characteristics. This overperformance is due to female refugee immigrants, who have higher wages than comparable native-born female peers up to the 8th decile of the wage distribution. Refugee immigrant females perform better than native females across all occupational tasks studied, including non-routine cognitive tasks. A remarkable similarity exists in the relative wage distributions among various refugee groups, suggesting that cultural differences and the length of time spent in the host country do not significantly affect their labor market performance.

Suggested Citation

  • Christopher F. Baum & Hans Lööf & Andreas Stephan & Klaus F. Zimmermann, 2018. "Estimating the wage premia of refugee immigrants: Lessons from Sweden," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 963, Boston College Department of Economics, revised 22 Feb 2024.
    • Handle: RePEc:boc:bocoec:963
    Note: Previously circulated as "Productivity of refugee workers and implications for innovation and growth"
    as

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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    refugees; wage earnings gap; occupational sorting; employer-employee data; correlated random effects model; Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J6 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

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