Projects

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Occupational Educational mismatch

by gender and migration status across Europe

Immigrants have been found to suffer from educational occupational mismatch (henceforward EOM), i.e., difficulty to achieve occupational status that corresponds with their educational level. However, most existing studies on this topic focus on male immigrants or use pooled samples of men and women, ignoring gender-specific aspects that might shape female employment status and occupational attainment. In addition, over-education among immigrants varies substantially across countries.
To fill these two lacunas in the literature I examine the factors that shape gender differences in EOM among migrants and the extent to which migrant women suffer from a double disadvantage in terms of occupational mismatch using a comparative approach. I use the EU Labor Force Survey (EULFS) data for the years 2018-2019 and compare the levels of gender differences in EOM of immigrants across 29 European countries. I focus on vertical EOM, using the Realized Matches approach which defines over/under-education based on the actual educational levels of workers in each occupation.
I a second study I look at the extent language as cultural capital shapes gender differences in educational-occupational mismatch among migrants. Using the PIAAC 2018 dataset, we employ a series of nested fixed effects linear models in which our dependent variable is the perceived years of over-education and study the effect of language use at home, controlling for linguistic competence in the host country language.

Birgier, D. P., & Bar-Haim, E. (2023). Language Used at Home and Educational–Occupational Mismatch of Migrants by Gender. Social Indicators Research, 1-26.

Birgier, D., & Cantalini, S. (2023). The Trade-Off Between Employment and Overeducation: A Cross-Country Comparative Study of Immigrants in 17 Western European Countries. Stockholm Research Reports in Demography. Preprint. https://doi.org/10.17045/sthlmuni.24118599.v1

Birgier, D. P & Bar-Haim, E. (2023). Language Distance, Language Abilities, and Labour Market Outcome of Migrants by Gender. Stockholm Research Reports in Demography. Preprint. https://doi.org/10.17045/sthlmuni.23911089.v1

Migrants Families Assimilation

How immigrants’ families’ economic assimilation differ by their individual characteristics and the context to which they migrated to. In order to do so, I have examined the economic assimilation of immigrants’ families in the U.S. and Sweden, two countries that differ substantially in regards to welfare and migration policies, labor markets, and levels of income inequality. To perform my study I employed two data sources: the American Community Survey (ACS), and Swedish Registers. In my dissertation, I assess inequality between native and immigrants’ families in terms of employment, and both households earning and total income.
By using logistics models, linear regression models and decomposition technique, I find that immigrant families assimilate better in the U.S. than their counterparts in Sweden. I also find that being married to a native plays a key role for the assimilation of immigrant families, more so in Sweden than in the U.S. These findings suggest that in Sweden knowledge of the host country language have an important role in immigrants’ assimilation, and that the higher returns to women employment in Sweden results in greater between-countries gaps in immigrant families’ assimilation. The results also support the hypothesis that Swedish work-family policies increase the share of dual-earner families, including that of immigrant families. However, the share of dual-earner families among immigrants is still low relative to native families, implying that the high returns for employment in Sweden increase the earning disadvantage that immigrants’ families suffer from. At the same time, because overall inequality in Sweden is lower than in the U.S., the relative position of immigrant families is better than it would be if the same immigrant families had been living in the U.S. Overall, my findings emphasize the importance of the too often-neglected family level in immigrants’ assimilation analyses, as well as the importance of the reception context in shaping the type of immigration and immigrants’ labour market performances.

Immigrants’ individual self-selection patterns,

context of reception and their economic assimilation

With Professor Christer Lundh and Professor Yitchak Haberfeld, we examined the relationship between immigrants’ self-selection patterns, reception context, and economic assimilation. In the project, we relied on both an international comparative framework and longitudinal register data.

Using a comparative perspective on the U.S., Sweden, and Israel, we find that the primary determinant of refugees’ economic assimilation is their characteristics and that the level of inequality in the receiving countries plays a significant role in moderating the earning gaps refugees suffer from.

We also explored how institutions, particularly the refugees’ dispersal policy adopted during the early 90s in Sweden, affected refugees’ economic assimilation. Using Swedish registers for 1993-2000, we tracked refugees affected by the policy, following their internal migration’s decisions after their initial placement and their earning trajectories.

Finally, we explore the patterns of assimilation of migrants across developed countries and the effects of their selectivity paters looking at migrants from Germany to the US and Swede.

We are currently working on a follow-up study that examines the selectivity patterns of emigrants from Sweden between 1993-2014.

Birgier, D. P., Lundh, C., Haberfeld, Y., & Elldér, E. (2022). Movers and Stayers: A Study of Emigration from Sweden 1993–2014. European Journal of Population, 1-32.

Haberfeld Y., Birgier D. P., Lundh C., and Elldér E. (2020). “Migration across developed countries: German immigrants in Sweden and the US.” International Migration, 58 (6), 171-194.

Haberfeld Y., Birgier D. P., Lundh C., and Elldér E. (2019). “Selectivity and internal migration: A study of refugees’ dispersal policy in Sweden.” Frontiers in Sociology, 4, 66.

Birgier D. P., Lundh C., Haberfeld Y. and Elldér E. (2016). “Self-selection and host country context in economic assimilation of political refugees in the US, Sweden, and Israel.” International Migration Review, 52(2), 524-558.