The Role of Firms in the Assimilation of Immigrants
Publication Date
3-31-2020
Grant Type
Early Career Research Award
Description
This project studies the role of firms in immigrants' labor market assimilation. We do so in the context of a large and sudden international migration shock: the arrival of nearly one million former Soviet Union (FSU) Jews to Israel in the 1990s. We use newly available Israeli population employer-employee data with information on workers' migrant status and migration year; in doing this, we are the first to study a large migration shock equipped with administrative employer-employee matched data that allows identifying migrants and natives. Our goal is to understand how a large wave of migrants sorts into new vs. existing firms, the between-firm employment segregation of migrants and its evolution over time, how much of the migrant-native earnings gap and subsequent catch-up is explained by firm-specific pay premiums, and the assimilation of immigrants not only in terms of earnings but also in terms of their employers’ characteristics.