Immigrants across Europe earn less and work in lower-quality jobs than natives, but the mechanisms underlying these disparities remain poorly understood. This paper asks whether immigrant disadvantage reflects barriers to accessing good jobs or skill deficits that persist even within similar...

A large body of literature shows that first-generation immigrants born in developing countries experience a higher likelihood of being overeducated than natives (i.e. immigrant overeducation). However, evidence is remarkably scarce when it comes to the overeducation of second-generation...

A large body of literature shows that first-generation immigrants born in developing countries experience a higher likelihood of being overeducated than natives (i.e. immigrant overeducation). However, evidence is remarkably scarce when it comes to the overeducation of second-generation...

Across many countries, young adults face a persistent skills mismatch, with firms reporting difficulty finding candidates with adequate soft skills. In Rwanda, young women face particularly acute barriers to securing employment. This study evaluates a two-week intensive soft skills training...

Context: VET programmes in most countries are organised as a combination of learning in schools and learning in workplaces, with elements of workplace learning ranging from a few hours of job shadowing to longer duration internships or full apprenticeships. While there is no doubt about the...

Access to the labor market is crucial for the economic integration of asylum seekers. This study estimates the causal impact of work authorization timing on the labor market outcomes of likely asylum seekers. We link USCIS administrative records with American Community Survey microdata and use...

Long-term unemployment among older workers is particularly difficult to overcome. We study the impacts of a large-scale job guarantee program that offered up to two years of fully subsidized employment to long-term unemployed individuals aged 50 and above. Using a sharp age-based discontinuity...

Employment gaps between refugees and natives are well documented, yet the role of trauma-related mental health in shaping these gaps remains underexplored, partly because most data sources lack measures of symptoms early after arrival. We assess probable PTSD shortly after displacement in an...

This Policy Note reports on the analyses undertaken in a number of wiiw Working Papers that are the output of two projects financed by the Anniversary Fund of the Austrian National Bank (Project no. 18474 and no. 17166). Four of the papers are based on survey data from the FIMAS dataset, which...

Refugees are more likely to develop mental diseases as most of them have been exposed to potentially traumatic events and fundamental stressors in their home countries, during migration and after resettling in the host countries. This diminishes their prospects for social and economic...

In this study, we evaluate the effectiveness of the participation of refugees in integration programmes intended to help them gain employment. The specific programmes considered are the Competence Check programme and the Integration Year programme that were introduced in Austria around the time...

While labour flows within the EU are substantial and growing, relatively little is known about what drives them or what conditions mobile workers face. This working paper describes the flows of working-age movers between EU Member States, addressing the question of who decides to move and...

This paper analyses the labour market entry of refugees and other (non-humanitarian) migrants originating from middle- and low-income non-European countries that arrived in Austria in 2014-2016. Specifically, we analyse factors that shaped the transition to and out of the first job in the...

This paper analyses occupational trajectories of refugees from their last job in the home country to their first and current jobs in Austria and the role of co-ethnic and Austrian social networks in job search, using data from a large-scale survey of recognised refugees from Syria, Afghanistan,...

In international comparison, dual systems of vocational education and training are often considered to be more successful than school-based systems for managing sustainable transitions from school to work. This assessment is particularly valid for Switzerland, while the German dual system has...

This paper examines the short- to long-term effects of large-scale refugee inflows on labour markets and anti-asylum attitudes. Using the exogenous arrival of Yugoslav refugees to Switzerland in the 1990s and municipal-level data with an instrumental variables strategy, we find that refugee...

This paper analyzes the role of health for refugees' integration into host societies' labor markets. We exploit the quasi-random dispersal policies of refugees across regions in Germany to analyze the causal effect of health on employment. Based on regional and temporal heterogeneity in a policy...

This paper examines the impact of a Swedish policy allowing manufacturing firms to influence the curricula of local educational institutions. Our analysis shows that the program has contributed to a significant reduction in youth unemployment, as well as an increase in marriage rates and male...

The labor market integration of asylum seekers remains a contested issue. Using the EU-Labor-Force-Survey, we characterize the state of asylum seekers’ labor market integration in Europe, and provide representative statistics on several dimensions of integration. We compare asylum seekers to...

Der Hauptgrund für die chronisch niedrige Erwerbsbeteiligung von Frauen im Vergleich zu Männern ist die "Child Penalty". Das Phänomen beschreibt die beruflichen Nachteile, die Frauen nach der Geburt des ersten Kindes erfahren, während Männer keine Einbußen verzeichnen. Wie beeinflusst...

This paper highlights recent trends in the Kosovo labor market and emigration. Like other Western Balkan countries, Kosovo experienced a sharp decline in population over the previous decade, as emigration increased. Using a structural model of the labor market and migration, the paper examines...

The labour market integration of migrants is a heavily politicised topic in Europe. Using detailed and recently updated data on migrant's motivations this paper places a much needed emphasis upon the heterogeneity of migrant groups and the pathways to their labour market integration. We focus on...

The CILS4NEPS project combined and harmonized panel data from the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Survey in Four European Countries (CILS4EU) and Starting Cohort 4 of the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS SC4). This unlocks additional research potential beyond the scope of both...

Inequality is a dynamic phenomenon, and the relative and absolute positions of individuals are subject to frequent shocks. It is important to know if preventive interventions mitigate adverse inequality effects of labor market shocks. We consider individuals up to three months before the...

This paper provides the first experimental evidence on the long-term effects of work-study programs, leveraging a randomized lottery design from a national program in Uruguay. Participation leads to a persistent 11 percent increase in formal labor earnings seven years after the program, driven...

How does being over- or underqualified at the beginning of a worker's career affect skill acquisition, retention, and promotion? Despite the importance of mismatch for the labor market, self-selection into jobs has made estimating these effects difficult. We overcome endogeneity concerns in the...

Vor dem Hintergrund aktueller Reformüberlegungen zur Zumutbarkeit von Arbeit nach § 10 SGB II untersucht dieser Forschungsbericht, welche Entfernungen zwischen Wohnort und Arbeitsort bei Beschäftigungsaufnahmen von Personen im Grundsicherungsbezug typischerweise auftreten. Im Fokus stehen...

This study examines the long-term effects of a standardized skills assessment test-MySkills-on the employment outcomes of jobseekers without formal vocational qualifications in Germany. In a labour market where certified qualifications are the key currency for access to stable jobs, individuals...