Employment Assimilation of Immigrants in the Netherlands: Catching Up and the Irrelevance of Education

Aslan Zorlu () and Joop Hartog

No 3534, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Using two Dutch labour force surveys, employment assimilation of immigrants is examined. We observe marked differences between immigrants by source country. Non-western immigrants never reach parity with native Dutch. Even second generation immigrants never fully catch up. Caribbean immigrants, who share a colonial history with the Dutch, assimilate relatively quick compared to other non-western immigrants but they still suffer from high unemployment. The study also documents that the quality of jobs is significantly lower for immigrants, especially for those who are at larger cultural distance to Dutch society. Job quality of immigrants increases with the duration of stay but again, does not reach parity with natives. The western immigrants seem to face no considerable difficulties in the Dutch labour market. The most remarkable conclusion is the irrelevance of education for socio-economic position of immigrants once the country of origin has been controlled for.

Keywords: unemployment; employment; immigrants; job quality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J15 J21 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 28 pages
Date: 2008-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab and nep-mig
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Published - published in: International Journal of Population Research, 2012, Article ID 634276

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