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Wage and employment effects of immigration: Evidence from South Korea

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 June 2021

Hyejin Kim
Hyejin Kim*
Affiliation:
Economic Research Institute, The Bank of Korea, 55 Namdaemun-ro, Jung-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea
*
Corresponding author. E-mail: hyjnkm@bok.or.kr
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Abstract

This paper studies the impact of immigration on native labor market outcomes in South Korea. We exploit the variation in immigration flows in an education-experience cell and find that, on average, immigration has no harmful effect on the wages or employment of native workers. However, there is a great heterogeneity of wage effects across education groups: high school dropouts suffer from the adverse effects, whereas the effects for college graduates are positive. We find the potential explanation for these differential effects in the suggestive evidence on the degree of substitution. Specifically, we examine the similarity of occupational distribution between natives and immigrants and assimilation patterns for immigrants.

Keywords

EmploymentimmigrationwagesJ15J31J61
Type
Research Paper
Information
Journal of Demographic Economics , Volume 89 , Issue 1 , March 2023 , pp. 63 - 83
Copyright
Copyright © Université catholique de Louvain 2021

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