From guests to hosts: immigrant‐native wage differentials in Spain
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyse immigrant‐native wage differentials in Spain.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper exploits the Earnings Structure Survey 2006, which is the first nationally representative sample of both foreign and Spanish employees. Using the Machado‐Mata econometric procedure, wage differentials between locals and foreigners are decomposed into the gap related to characteristics and the one due to different returns on endowments (i.e. discrimination).
Findings
The paper finds that, in absolute terms, the latter component grows across the wage distribution, reflecting the existence of a kind of glass ceiling, consistent with the evidence of over‐education found in previous research.
Originality/value
The paper for the first time explores earnings differentials between immigrant and Spanish workers using a nationally representative database. In addition, standard errors are computed in order to determine if the gaps are statistically significant, a task not addressed by previous works. Finally, the work is relevant as Spain has become a host country only a few years ago.
Keywords
Citation
Antón, J., Muñoz de Bustillo, R. and Carrera, M. (2010), "From guests to hosts: immigrant‐native wage differentials in Spain", International Journal of Manpower, Vol. 31 No. 6, pp. 645-659. https://doi.org/10.1108/01437721011073355
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2010, Emerald Group Publishing Limited