Immigration and the labour market outcomes of natives in developing countries: A case study of South Africa

Type Conference Paper - Population Association of America 2013 Annual Meeting Program April 11-13
Title Immigration and the labour market outcomes of natives in developing countries: A case study of South Africa
Author(s)
Publication (Day/Month/Year) 2013
City Sheraton
Country/State New Orleans
URL http://paa2013.princeton.edu/papers/130130
Abstract
According to the 2009 Human Development Report most of the international migration takes place between countries with similar levels of development. Research on the impact of Mexican migration to the US or Africans/Eastern Europeans to Western European countries focus on only 37% of the international migration patterns. In this paper we focus on the other 63%. This research is interested in the effects that immigration has on the labour markets in developing countries. Using the 2001 census and the 2007 community survey from South Africa this paper examines the effect that immigration has on labour market outcomes of native- born South Africans. We estimate the impact of an increase in the number of workers with a particular set of skills on the labour market outcomes of native-born South Africans with the same set of skills. We also estimate the impact of an increase in skilled immigrants on the labour market outcomes of low-skilled native-born South Africans. Low-skilled immigrants increase the employment rates of low-skilled native-born South Africans while there appears to be no effect of skilled immigrants on the labour market outcomes of skilled natives. However, our results show that skilled immigrants have a crowding out effect on low-skilled black native-born workers while they stimulate the demand for low-skilled coloured native-born workers. The displacement effect appears to happen exclusively in wage-employment.

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