Gender, Selection into Employment, and the Wage Impact of Immigration

Immigrant supply shocks are typically expected to reduce the wage of comparable workers. Natives may respond lower by moving markets that were not directly targeted immigrants and where presumably did drop. This paper argues change observed in market depends only on size native response, but also which natives choose respond. A non-random response alters composition sample workers, mechanically changing average affected biasing estimated impact immigration. We document importance this selection bias French labor market, women accounted for a rapidly increasing share foreign-born workforce since 1976. The raw correlations suggest immigrant shock women, led sizable decline their employment rate. In contrast, immigration had little rate men, drop male wage. show near-zero correlation between female wages arises partly because who left force relatively low wages. Adjusting results similar elasticity both men (between -0.8 -1.0).