Immigrant Wage Differentials, Ethnicity and Occupational Clustering.

The economic performance and a related discussion on the existence, or otherwise, of racial discrimination in the UK labour market for migrants and ethnic minorities are of great interest to policymakers. In this paper we investigate the concept of occupational clustering as an explanation for the relatively poor earnings performance of non-white migrants and non-white natives. Although occupational clustering and other human capital and socio-economic factors provide a partial explanation for the raw earnings differential, evidence of ethnic based disadvantage persists.