Immigrant Earnings, Assimilation and Heterogeneity

In this study, I examine firstly the determinants of the wage earnings for immigrants from different countries, and secondly whether their wage earnings converge to those of comparable native-born Swedes. The study is based on a longitudinal dataset, and the data refers to 1991 and 1995, respectively. The empirical results indicate that immigrants in Sweden are heterogeneous, and different income determinants, such as education, cohort-specific factors and time of residence, affect different groups of immigrants in different ways. Even after 20 years of residence, almost none of the groups appear to reach the same level of earnings as natives. In particular, the earnings of immigrants from typical refugeesending countries tend to be much lower.