Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/267368 
Year of Publication: 
2022
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 15631
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
This paper investigates the impact of opening the labor market to qualified immigrants who hold fully equivalent diplomas with respect to natives and speak the same mother tongue. Leveraging the 2002 opening of the Swiss labor market to qualified workers from the European Union, we show that the policy change led to a large inflow of young immigrants with the same linguistic background as natives. This, in turn, produced heterogeneous effects on natives wages and employment. While incumbent workers experienced a wage gain and a decrease in the likelihood of becoming inactive, the opposite happened for young natives entering the labor market after the policy change. This is likely the result of different patterns of complementarity/substitutability between same-language immigrants and natives with different levels of labor market experience.
Subjects: 
worker substitutability
wage effects
qualified immigration
experience
JEL: 
F22
J08
J31
J61
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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