In Europe, Arduous Jobs Fall on First-Generation Migrants: But Later Generations Benefit from Improved Opportunities
(2025) De Economist — Vol. 173, p. 425-448 (2025)
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- This paper contributes to the literature on migrants’ labour-market disadvantages by considering one dimension that has received limited attention in Europe: their occupations’ (relative) physical arduousness. To quantify their arduousness gap, the paper combines (i) data from the European Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) informing on occupation and immigration status with (ii) information on occupational arduousness from the U.S. O*NET database, categorised at the ISCO 3-digit level. The findings reveal that first-generation migrants, particularly women and/or non-EU migrants, are disproportionately concentrated in arduous jobs, experiencing a significant disadvantage in working conditions. However, this disadvantage slowly diminishes over time, with the accumulation of residency in the host country leading to improved occupational outcomes. Notably, second-generation migrants close this gap and even experience a slight advantage in work arduousness compared to native workers, pointing to complete convergence.
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Vandenberghe, V. (2025). In Europe, Arduous Jobs Fall on First-Generation Migrants: But Later Generations Benefit from Improved Opportunities. De Economist, 173, 425-448. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10645-025-09453-x (Original work published 2025)