Gender differences in labour market integration trajectories of recently arrived migrants in the Netherlands

ABSTRACT

This study investigates gender differences in recently arrived migrants’ labour market activity and occupational status both shortly after arrival and with increasing length of stay. We examine the role of education, household composition and traditional gender role values by estimating multi-group multilevel models based on three waves of the New Immigrants to the Netherlands Survey. In line with findings regarding gender gaps in labour market behaviour, recent female migrants are less active on labour market than their male counterparts, and we observe a clear motherhood penalty and fatherhood premium on the number of hours worked. Men and women show only marginal differences in their occupational statuses. Changes over time do not differ between men and women, indicating persistent gender inequality in labour market attainment. Moreover, interesting differences between the nationalities were found. Polish migrants show the highest activity levels and lowest occupational status, also when compared to Bulgarians. Spanish migrants hold the highest occupational statuses. Recent Turkish migrants seem to be better integrated and show fewer gender differences than the more established Turkish minority in the Netherlands.

KEYWORDS:

• Labour market integration
• recently arrived migrants
• female labour market participation
• longitudinal design
• multilevel multi-group model

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. For exception, see Raijman and Semyonov (1997), Amuedo-Dorantes and De la Rica (2007) and Clark and Drinkwater (2008).

2. Data about the origin country and length of stay of the partner were available for this study, and initially we included this information in our analyses; however, we had to remove it again due to statistical power issues. As about 80% of the respondents with a partner reported the partner's origin country to be other than the Netherlands, our assumption that most partners are migrants themselves and therefore bound to have a limited social network in the Netherlands seems plausible.

3. Designed by Lubbers, Gijsberts, Fleischmann and Maliepaard (2015), carried out by Veldkamp Marktonderzoek BV and funded by NWO.

4. According to the municipal registry, between wave 1 and wave 2 (and between wave 2 and 3) 16.3% (9.8%) of the Bulgarians, 12.5% (7.5%) of the Polish, 24% (10.4%) of the Spanish and 10.4% (4.1%) of the Turkish had moved out of the Netherlands. Participants who moved within the Netherlands were contacted at their new address.

5. Five-year threshold adapted from Raijman and Semyonov (1997).

6. See Appendix 1, Table A1 for the share of men and women from each origin country per wave.

7. Twenty-three respondents in the first wave reported to have worked over 60 h per week, fifteen in wave 2 and four in wave 3. The largest number of weekly work hours reported was 93.

8. All respondents who had answered that their main activity is other than ‘working’ or ‘in maternity leave’ were recoded to have working hours equal to 0. This was necessary since the item about working hours asked about the current or previous job.

9. Previous studies about female labour market participation also suggested to take the age and number of children into account (Budig and Hodges 2010) but due to the low number of respondents with children in our sample (17.5–35.6%), there was insufficient statistical power for making these distinctions.

10. Activities ‘in education’ and ‘inactive’ were not possible to be included in the model to explain non-existing occupational status. They were tested both as predictors and covariates.

11. This concerns the control variable for cases with missing information about the level of education.