From guests to hosts: a first whole picture of immigrant-native wage differentials in Spain

This article analyses the immigrant-native wage differentials in Spain, which only recently has become a host country. The paper exploits the Earnings Structure Survey 2006, which is the first nationally representative sample of both foreigner and Spaniard employees. Using the Machado-Mata econometric procedure, wage differentials between locals and foreigners are decomposed into the gap related to characteristics and that due to different returns to endowments (i.e., discrimination). We found that, in absolute terms, the latter component grows across wage distribution, reflecting the existence of a kind of glass ceiling consistent with the evidence of over-education found by previous research.