IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp620.html

Public Policy and the Labor Market Adjustment of New Immigrants to Australia

Author

Listed:
  • Cobb-Clark, Deborah A.

    (University of Sydney)

Abstract

Two separate cohorts of immigrants to Australia are compared in order to assess the potential role of immigrant selection criteria, labor market conditions, and income-support policy in facilitating the labor market adjustment of new arrivals. Although these two cohorts entered Australia only five years apart, their initial labor market outcomes varied dramatically. The results indicate that changes in immigration policy may have led to increased human capital endowments that in turn resulted in higher participation rates and reduced unemployment. At the same time, improvement in Australian labor market conditions and changes in income-support policy over the 1990s – which most likely altered the returns to human capital – were probably instrumental in reinforcing the effects of tighter immigrant selection criteria. As much as half of the fall in unemployment rates among women and one third the decline among men appears to have occurred as the result of changes in the returns to demographic and human capital characteristics.

Suggested Citation

  • Cobb-Clark, Deborah A., 2002. "Public Policy and the Labor Market Adjustment of New Immigrants to Australia," IZA Discussion Papers 620, IZA Network @ LISER.
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp620
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp620.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Denise J. Doiron & W. Craig Riddell, 1994. "The Impact of Unionization on Male-Female Earnings Differences in Canada," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 29(2), pages 504-534.
    2. Richard P. C. Brown, 1998. "Comparative labor market performance of visaed and non-visaed migrants: Pacific islanders in Sydney," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 11(3), pages 395-411.
    3. Harry Clarke, 1996. "Forward Planning and Stability of the Australian Migration Program," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 29(2), pages 155-170, April.
    4. Cobb-Clark, Deborah A, 1993. "Immigrant Selectivity and Wages: The Evidence for Women," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(4), pages 986-993, September.
    5. repec:ilo:ilowps:338944 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. George J. Borjas, 2021. "Self-Selection and the Earnings of Immigrants," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Foundational Essays in Immigration Economics, chapter 4, pages 69-91, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    7. Guillermina Jasso & Mark Rosensweig & James P. Smith, 2003. "The Earnings of US immigrants," Labor and Demography 0312007, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. repec:bla:ecorec:v:75:y:1999:i:228:p:49-62 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. James Ted Mcdonald & Christopher Worswick, 1999. "The Earnings of Immigrant Men in Australia: Assimilation, Cohort Effects, and Macroeconomic Conditions," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 75(1), pages 49-62, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Derek Hum & Wayne Simpson, 2002. "Analysis of the Performance of Immigrant Wages Using Panel Data," 10th International Conference on Panel Data, Berlin, July 5-6, 2002 C2-1, International Conferences on Panel Data.
    2. Fernando A. Lozano & Mary J. Lopez, 2013. "Border Enforcement and Selection of Mexican Immigrants in the United States," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(1), pages 76-110, January.
    3. Dequiedt, Vianney & Zenou, Yves, 2013. "International migration, imperfect information, and brain drain," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 62-78.
    4. Martin Junge & Martin D. Munk & Panu Poutvaara, 2013. "International Migration of Couples," Norface Discussion Paper Series 2013018, Norface Research Programme on Migration, Department of Economics, University College London.
    5. Bratsberg, Bernt, 1995. "The incidence of non-return among foreign students in the United States," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 373-384, December.
    6. Fernando A. Lozano & Michael D. Steinberger, 2012. "Empirical Methods in the Economics of International Immigration," Chapters, in: Carlos Vargas-Silva (ed.), Handbook of Research Methods in Migration, chapter 8, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Lutz Hendricks, "undated". "Migration and Human Capital," Working Papers 97/6, Arizona State University, Department of Economics.
    8. Robert F. Schoeni, 1998. "Labor Market Assimilation of Immigrant Women," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 51(3), pages 483-504, April.
    9. repec:wsr:ecbook:2010:i:ii-008 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Dustmann, Christian & Glitz, Albrecht, 2011. "Migration and Education," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & Stephen Machin & Ludger Woessmann (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 327-439, Elsevier.
    11. Maani, Sholeh A. & Wang, Xingang & Rogers, Alan, 2015. "Network Effects, Ethnic Capital and Immigrants' Earnings Assimilation: Evidence from a Spatial, Hausman-Taylor Estimation," IZA Discussion Papers 9308, IZA Network @ LISER.
    12. Abdurrahman Aydemir, 2003. "Are Immigrants Positively or Negatively Selected? The Role of Immigrant Selection Criteria and Self-Selection," Labor and Demography 0306002, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Mattoo, Aaditya & Neagu, Ileana Cristina & Özden, Çaglar, 2008. "Brain waste? Educated immigrants in the US labor market," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(2), pages 255-269, October.
    14. Barry R. Chiswick, 1999. "Are Immigrants Favorably Self-Selected? An Economic Analysis," University of Chicago - George G. Stigler Center for Study of Economy and State 147, Chicago - Center for Study of Economy and State.
    15. Augustin Coulon & Jonathan Wadsworth, 2010. "On the relative rewards to immigration: a comparison of the relative labour market position of Indians in the USA, the UK and India," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 8(1), pages 147-169, March.
    16. Ilpo Kauppinen & Till Nikolka & Panu Poutvaara, 2020. "Self-selection and Motivations of Emigrants from a Welfare State," EconPol Policy Reports 19, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    17. Luthra, Renee Reichl & Platt, Lucinda, 2023. "Do immigrants benefit from selection? Migrant educational selectivity and its association with social networks, skills and health," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 118629, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    18. Dustmann, Christian & Fadlon, Itzhak & Weiss, Yoram, 2011. "Return migration, human capital accumulation and the brain drain," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(1), pages 58-67, May.
    19. Chiswick, Barry R., 1999. "Are Immigrants Favorably Self-Selected? An Economic Analysis," Working Papers 147, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    20. Villalobos, Carlos & Riquelme, Andrés, 2023. "Household constraints and dysfunctional rural–urban migration," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 1070-1088.
    21. Abdurrahman Aydemir, 2013. "Skill-based immigrant selection and labor market outcomes by visa category," Chapters, in: Amelie F. Constant & Klaus F. Zimmermann (ed.), International Handbook on the Economics of Migration, chapter 23, pages 432-452, Edward Elgar Publishing.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • J6 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers
    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics

    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:iza:izadps:dp620. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Mark Fallak (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaalu.html .

    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.