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Social involvement, level of income and employment among immigrants : The Israeli experience

Yuval Arbel (School of Business, Carmel Academic Center, Haifa, Israel)
Yossef Tobol (School of Industrial Management, Jerusalem College of Technology, Jerusalem, Israel)
Erez Siniver (Department of Economics and Business Administration, College of Management, Rishon Lezion, Israel)

International Journal of Manpower

ISSN: 0143-7720

Article publication date: 26 August 2014

421

Abstract

Purpose

Previous studies of immigrant populations suggest that ceteris paribus an immigrant's level of income is strongly and positively correlated with his proficiency in the local language. The purpose of this paper is to extend this literature using data from a telephone survey carried out in 2005 among a representative sample of Former Soviet Union (FSU) immigrants. Unlike previous surveys, the data includes responses to detailed subjective questions on degree of social involvement, in addition to the number of years since migration and level of proficiency in the local language. The authors are able to demonstrate that a higher degree of assimilation is associated with a significantly higher likelihood of finding full-time employment. Moreover, the estimation results for the wage equation reveal that the effect on income previously attributed solely to language proficiency is in fact also the result of more successful assimilation in the receiving culture. The findings thus stress the importance of assimilation in determining success in job search and in explaining variations in income among immigrants who are already employed in full-time jobs. Finally, the results obtained when differentiating according to gender show that male immigrants have better prospects of finding a job than female immigrants and higher incomes once they find one, which is consistent with the existing literature.

Design/methodology/approach

In order to compare the relative importance of the language proficiency variable (LANGUAGE i ) to that of the social involvement variable (ASSIMILATION i ), The authors apply the probit model to two separate equations. The first is the prospects of finding a job and the second is the wage equation.

Findings

–The authors are able to demonstrate that a higher degree of assimilation is associated with a significantly higher likelihood of finding full-time employment. Moreover, the estimation results for the wage equation reveal that the effect on income previously attributed solely to language proficiency is in fact also the result of more successful assimilation in the receiving culture. The findings thus stress the importance of assimilation in determining success in job search and in explaining variations in income among immigrants who are already employed in full-time jobs. Finally, the results obtained when differentiating according to gender show that male immigrants have better prospects of finding a job than female immigrants and higher incomes once they find one, which is consistent with the existing literature.

Research limitations/implications

The limitation is, like all of the existing literature and in particular the few studies that deal with social networking, that the database is exclusively based on either interviews or surveys consisting of self-assessment questions (such as, Dustman, 1996; Lazear, 1999; Amuedo-Dorantes and Mundra, 2007). Consequently, the implicit assumption is that the respondent's self-perceived level of assimilation constitutes a good proxy for the true level.

Practical implications

The implications are the following: the findings are thus consistent with those of Lazear (1999), who anticipates a negative correlation between the relative size of a minority group and the level of proficiency in the local language. In the case of Israel, which received a massive wave of 1.5 million immigrants from the FSU, the findings indeed suggest that the chances of an immigrant job seeker finding a job are far more dependent on his degree of assimilation than his level of language proficiency. Moreover, the effect of the degree of assimilation, which has not previously been included in estimations, was mistakenly attributed to language proficiency. The findings of this research thus reveal the importance of the degree of assimilation in finding a job and can explain income differences among those who have already found full-time employment.

Originality/value

Previous studies of immigrant populations suggest that ceteris paribus the level of income is strongly and positively correlated with proficiency in the local language. The current study extends this literature using data from a telephone survey carried out in 2005 among a representative sample of FSU immigrants. Unlike previous surveys, the data includes responses to detailed subjective questions on degree of social involvement, in addition to the number of years since migration and level of proficiency in the local language. The authors are able to demonstrate that a higher degree of assimilation is associated with a significantly higher likelihood of finding full-time employment. Moreover, the estimation results for the wage equation reveal that the effect on income previously attributed to language proficiency is in fact the result of more successful assimilation in the receiving culture. The results are robust to gender differences. The findings thus stress the importance of assimilation in determining success in job search and in explaining variations in income among immigrants who are already employed in full-time jobs.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

JEL Classifications — J15, Z13

The authors wish to thank the Research Department of the Jewish Agency and Dvora Lipson for their invaluable assistance. The authors also wish to thank Sabina Lisizia of the Multidisciplinary Department at the Ariel University Center for her assistance in obtaining the data set and the anonymous referees for their helpful comments. Any views expressed in this research are the authors own.

Citation

Arbel, Y., Tobol, Y. and Siniver, E. (2014), "Social involvement, level of income and employment among immigrants : The Israeli experience", International Journal of Manpower, Vol. 35 No. 6, pp. 798-816. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJM-01-2012-0015

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2014, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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