The occupational integration of migrant women in Western European labour markets

Abstract

This paper studies the integration of migrant women in six European labour markets, highlighting how their migration penalty is related to the family’s migration dynamics and to the husband’s occupational condition. In order to compare the labour market outcomes of native and migrant women, Linear Probability Models are estimated using EU–LFS data. Results show that migrant women are penalized everywhere. However, in the Mediterranean labour markets their employment penalty is lower, while the penalty concerning job quality, conditional on employment, is relatively severe. Regarding the role of family migration, results show that: tied-movers women were disadvantaged with respect to both natives and other migrants; those migrants whose partners were unemployed or had low-quality jobs were more likely to find a job than those whose husbands had a good occupational condition. Both patterns were stronger in Mediterranean labour markets.