Entering the Mainstream Economy? Workplace Segregation and Assimilation across Immigrant Generations

Entering the Mainstream Economy? Workplace Segregation and Assimilation across Immigrant Generations

Are Skeie Hermansen - OSC Scientific Seminar, February 11 (online)
  • Image Hyejin Kang (via Shutterstock)Image Hyejin Kang (via Shutterstock)

OSC Scientific Seminar 2021-2022

Friday 11th February 2022, 11:30 am
Online conference via Zoom

Entering the Mainstream Economy?
Workplace Segregation and Assimilation across Immigrant Generations

Are Skeie Hermansen

Dept. of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo
Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm University

Are Skeie HermansenLow-status immigrants in Europe and North America are often found in workplaces with high shares of minority employees and less prestigious jobs compared to natives. However, less in known on whether and how socioeconomic progress in the second generation translates into declining workplace segregation.

Using linked employer-employee administrative data from Norway, this study shows that, on average, 43% and 28%, respectively, of immigrants’ and their descendants’ coworkers have immigrant background compared to 14% among natives.
For economic segregation, the average workplace percentile rank in mean coworker salaries are 39, 48, and 51 for immigrants, descendants, and natives.
A formal decomposition shows that individual worker traits, employer characteristics, and residential segregation collectively explain about 44-49% and 83-86% of ethnic and socioeconomic workplace segregation, respectively, in both immigrant generations.
Overall, this documents a clear pattern of intergenerational assimilation where many immigrant descendants are entering workplaces in the mainstream economy, that resemble those of natives.

Registration is mandatory (the link for the videoconference will be sent one day before)

To find out more: Profile Page (Univ. Oslo)

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