Immigrants in a Booming Economy: Analysing Their Earnings and Welfare Dependence

By A. Barrett, Yvonne McCarthy. Social Science Research Network, 2007

117 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Ireland’s exceptional economic growth in recent years has led to an influx of immigrants. Given the favourable economic climate into which these immigrants are arriving, it is interesting to ask how their earnings and welfare dependence compare with the native population. To the extent that strong economic growth produces good labour market opportunities for immigrants, earnings disadvantages may be lessened and any tendency towards welfare dependence may be reduced. Data from a nationally representative sample drawn in 2004 are used to assess the earnings of immigrants in Ireland relative to the native population and also the rate of welfare receipt across the two groups. Immigrants are found to earn 18 percent less than natives, controlling for education and years of work experience. However, this single figure hides differences across immigrants from English-speaking and non-English speaking countries. We also find evidence of a wage gap for immigrants with third level educations, relative to comparable natives. On average, immigrants are half as likely to have been in receipt of social welfare payments in the previous twelve months relative to natives. A difference in welfare participation remains when we control for the higher education attainment of immigrants.

Subfields: General Health Professions, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/72e9813f8808dde7bf7e27b180e8a8be2ec5a4e1

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In General Health Professions

In Sociology and Political Science

Citations in the corpus

Are Ireland's Immigrants Integrating into Its Labor Market? (2008, background): “However, they do not appear to be accessing jobs that fully reflect their education levels (Barrett, Bergin, and Duffy, 2006) and appear to be earning significantly less than comparable natives (Barrett and McCarthy, 2007).”
Assessing the Fiscal Costs and Benefits of A8 Migration to the UK (2009, methodology): “(2002) and Barrett and McCarthy (2007). (8)See, for example, Borjas and Trejo (1991) and Hansen and Lofstrom (2003). (9)Barrett and McCarthy (2008) present a recent review of this literature. (10)See Rowthorn (2008) for a recent review. (11)Card (2007) – following the suggestion in Edmonston and Lee”
Measuring discrimination facing ethnic minority job applicants: an Irish experiment (2011, background): “In Ireland, where immigration is a recent phenomenon, there are indications that a similar pattern of migrant disadvantage may have developed (Barrett and McCarthy, 2007; Turner, 2010).”
EU Enlargement and Migration: Assessing the Macroeconomic Impacts (2010, unknown): “(2006) and for non-English speaking migrants in Ireland in Barrett and McCarthy (2006). It is possible that the migrant pay penalty disappears over time as migrants adapt to the destination country and find jobs more commensurate to their skill levels or as migrants in temporary arrangements return ”
Migration in an Enlarged EU: A Challenging Solution? (2009, background): “Ireland is an interesting case study when comparing the receipt of welfare between immigrants and natives: Barrett and McCarthy (2007) find that immigrants in Ireland are less intensive users of the welfare system.”