Immigrant/Native Labor Market Inequalities: A Portrait of Patterns and Trends in France and the United Kingdom, 1990-2007

This article gives insights into immigrants’ incorporation into the French and British labor markets in the 1990s and the 2000s, using British and French Labor Force Surveys harmonized by the authors. It compares inequalities in earnings and employment between natives and immigrants in the two countries, but also among immigrant groups. These two countries are among the most commonly included in comparative studies of immigration, but we still have surprisingly little comparative evidence on immigrants’ socioeconomic disadvantage. The results suggest that labor market inequality is sharper in the UK, especially with respect to earnings. More precisely, the most underprivileged immigrant groups in the UK (Pakistanis, Bangladeshis) are disadvantaged to a greater extent than their counterparts in France (Turkish and African immigrants). At the same time, diversity within the immigrant population is much more marked in the UK; some groups have very little labor market disadvantage or even do better than natives, which is almost never the case in France. The French labor market is characterized by a significantly higher level of gender inequality, particularly in earnings, and this compounds the labor market disadvantage of immigrant women. Readers wishing to cite this document are asked to use the following form of words: Christel Kesler, Mirna Safi (2012). “Immigrant/Native Labor Market Inequalities: A Portrait of Patterns and Trends in France and the United Kingdom, 1990-2007”, Notes & Documents, 2012-01, Paris, OSC, Sciences Po/CNRS. For an on-line version of this working paper and others in the series, please visit the OSC website at: http://osc.sciences-po.fr/publication/pub_n&d.htm OSC – Notes & Documents N° 2012-01 Christel Kesler, Mirna Safi– Immigrant/Native Labor Market Inequalities 1/19