Cross-occupational Effects of Immigration on Native Wages in the UK

Marco Alfano, Ross Mckenzie, Graeme Roy

    Research output: Working paper/PreprintWorking paper

    Abstract

    This paper estimates the effect of immigration into an occupation on the wages of natives working in other, better paid occupations. Using Annual Population Survey data from the UK we rank occupations by real hourly wage and find that increases in the migrant/native ratio raise average wages of natives working in the next higher paid occupation by around 0.13 percent. We find that these effects operate through migrants' higher educational attainments raising workplace productivity more broadly and supporting specialization in tasks. Our findings have important implications for policy and public discourse. They suggest that debates over the economic impacts of migration often ignore the potential spill-over benefits that a migrant can bring to the outcomes for native workers elsewhere in the wage distribution, particularly in lower wage occupations.
    Original languageEnglish
    Place of PublicationGlasgow
    PublisherUniversity of Strathclyde
    Number of pages34
    Publication statusPublished - 14 Aug 2020

    Publication series

    NameStrathclyde Discussion Papers in Economics
    PublisherUniversity of Strathclyde
    No.11
    Volume20

    Keywords

    • immigration
    • impact
    • wage distribution

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