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The aim of this paper is to study the role of intermarriage in the process of immigrant economic assimilation in France.

The authors estimate an earnings equation for immigrants in France to examine the extent to which intermarried immigrants are better assimilated in the labor market – as measured by earnings – than their non‐intermarried counterparts. To handle the possible endogeneity problem of intermarriage, two novel instruments are used: the “sex ratio” for each region‐ethnicity cell, and “probability of marrying within one's own ethnic group”.

It wass found that immigrants who are intermarried earn around 17 per cent more than immigrants who are endogamously married. After taking into account individual characteristics and endogeneity of intermarriage, the premium is around 25 to 35 per cent. In addition, the intermarriage premium is substantially higher for individuals who have a better grasp of the French language before migration than for those whose language skill is poor. This result seems to suggest that, perhaps, immigrants who have a strong base in the native language can gain greater benefit from intermarriage.

The paper is the first to investigate this important aspect of immigrants' assimilation process in the French labor market.

The purpose of this paper is to test whether the gender wage gap at the beginning of the working life in France varies with the gender composition of occupations (male-dominated, female-dominated or mixed) and its main determinant (educational pre-sorting or labour market sorting).

The first stage of the methodology is to decompose segregation indexes at occupation level into the two components of determination noted above. The occupations are then divided into five groups on the basis of their gender composition and the weight of the educational segregation. Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions are then applied to each group.

Among 54 strongly gendered occupations, the segregation in 26 stems mainly from educational pre-sorting. This context is favourable to reduction of the gender wage gap. However, a modest wage differential is not proof of convergence towards equity, as it may conceal the existence of a significant discrimination component, as in male occupations.

The results relate to a cohort of French youth. The earnings-equalizing impact of education-based occupational segregation should be tested in other national contexts.

Public authorities should put in place incentives to encourage women's participation in a greater range of education and training courses and to improve the matching between education and the skill content of jobs.

The originality lies in the suggestion that a strong connection between education and skill requirements helps to narrow the occupational gender wage gap.

Most succession processes prove to be dysfunctional, resulting in high hidden costs. This article shows how a socio‐economic process can help the actors prevent those dysfunctions, while dealing with the creation of new forms of power.