WebCT: ECON30631 Labour Economics (004510) - ECON30631 &LEC 2009-10 1st Sem (coursework) : Tutorial 8_2 Immigrant Labour Market Assimilation
This page last changed on 23 Dec 2009 by msraskc.
One of the key questions in the economics of immigration is what happens to immigrants in the labour market of the host country after they arrive. Do their labour market outcomes adjust towards those of "natives", i.e. those workers who were already there? The process by which their labour market outcomes adjust has become known as "assimilation" (although this terminology could be criticised). This topic asks you to outline the basic idea behind the measurement of assimilation and report some of the main results for the UK and US. Start by considering whatever "theory" you can about assimilation although you might find a formal statement of this hard to locate. Then describe how the US literature has evolved from the work of Chiswick through Borjas's papers on this to Card and his paper on "Is the New Immigration So Bad?". Some of the details of how people estimate these models are quite technical and involved but the idea of cohort-change versus "true" assimilation is important so try to make this point. You don't have to go into all the gory details of Borjas' numerous (very tedious) papers on this - just get over the key messages. For the UK, the key papers are by Bell, and Clark and Lindley and you can describe the results of these and what they seem to suggest. If you get time and want to extend your topic you could consider one or both of: (a) evidence from other countries; (b) evidence about the "assimilation" of other outcome e.g. welfare dependency or health. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Document generated by Confluence on 14 Jul 2010 11:33 |