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The economic literature starting with Borjas (2001) suggests that immigrants are more flexible than natives in responding to changing sectoral, occupational and spatial shortages in the labor market. The purpose of this paper is to study the relative responsiveness to labor shortages by immigrants from various origins, skills and tenure in the country vis-à-vis the natives, and how it varied over the business cycle during the Great Recession.

Using data primarily from the EU Labor Force Survey and the EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions, the authors calculate a wage-based measure of labor shortages in the first stage while in the second stage the authors use them in a first-differences fixed-effects model as a regressor to explain changes in immigrants’ distribution across sectors, occupations and countries vis-à-vis the natives.

The authors show that immigrants have responded to changing labor shortages across EU member states, occupations and sectors at least as much and in many cases more flexibly than natives. This effect is especially significant for low-skilled immigrants from the new member states or with the medium number of years since migration, as well as with high-skilled immigrants with relatively few (one to five) or many (11+) years since migration. The relative responsiveness of some immigrant groups declined during the crisis years (those from Europe outside the EU or with 11 or more years since migration), whereas other groups of immigrants became particularly fluid during the Great Recession, such as those from new member states.

The results suggest that immigrants may play an important role in labor adjustment during times of asymmetric economic shocks, and support the case for well-designed immigration policy and free movement of workers within the EU. Some limitations include alternative interpretations of the wage premium as our measure of shortage, as well as possible endogeneity of this measure in the model.

The results provide new insights into the functioning of the European Single Market and the roles various immigrant groups play for its stabilization through labor adjustment during the times of uneven economic development across sectors, occupations and countries.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of employment protection legislation (EPL) on self-employment in a comparative analysis between immigrants and natives. Specifically, it investigates whether, as a result of more stringent regulations, self-employment becomes a vehicle for better labour market integration for immigrants and natives, and for better matching between the supply and demand of labour and skills.

The authors use OECD indicators on the strictness of EPL, self-employment rates calculated for natives and immigrants from the EU Labour Force Survey and a range of control variables, in a longitudinal study covering 18 European countries over the period 1995–2013. The analysis employs a panel regression with random effects as the baseline model, with country and time fixed effects models serving for robustness checks.

The results indicate that EPL of regular contracts affects native self-employment positively, with some evidence of a negative effect for immigrants. On the other hand, EPL of temporary contracts positively affects immigrants’ self-employment. These results indicate that a stricter EPL crowds out incumbent native workers from the prime employment segment of regular contracts into self-employment, whereas a similar effect exists for immigrant workers in the segment of temporary contracts. This is consistent with the hypothesis of segmentation of labour market opportunities between insiders and outsiders, with implications for immigration, employment and entrepreneurship policies.

This is the first study to systematically study the effect of EPL on immigrant and native self-employment in a comparative framework. It elucidates to what extent self-employment serves as an alternative channel of labour market integration in response to less and more strict regulation of regular and temporary employment contracts. Distinguishing immigrant and native workers helps us understand how these effects may differ for outsiders and insiders in the labour market, as represented by the two groups.

The purpose of this paper is to study opinions and attitudes towards immigrants and minorities and their interactions with other barriers to minorities' economic integration. Specifically, the minority experts' own perceptions about these issues, the veracities and repercussions of unfavorable attitudes of natives are to be considered.

Employing newly available data from the IZA Expert Opinion Survey 2007 main trends in the integration situation of ethnic minorities in Europe are depicted in a comparative manner.

Robust findings show that: ethnic minorities face integration problems; natives' general negative attitudes are a key factor of their challenging situation; discrimination is acknowledged as the single most important integration barrier; low education and self‐confidence as well as cultural differences also hinder integration; minorities want change and that it comes about by policies based on the principle of equal treatment.

Future research should not only investigate how negative attitudes are formed but also study their dynamics with respect to integration policies.

Well‐designed integration policies, that take the specific situation of the respective ethnic minority into account, are persistent and enforcement of anti‐discrimination laws is desirable.

Using a unique dataset, the innovative study is the first to gauge the perspectives of expert stakeholders and ethnic minorities on their integration situation and the main barriers that hinder it.

The purpose of this paper is to comparatively analyse the roles of foreign origin and citizenship in the labor markets of Eastern and Eestern Member States of the EU.

The EU Survey of Income and Living Conditions is used to evaluate the roles of foreign origin and citizenship on employment and earnings using the standard Probit and OLS econometric models. The native/non‐native labor market divide is measured using Fairlie and Oaxaca‐Blinder decomposition techniques.

The results indicate that, while predominantly foreign origin is of key importance in the Western EU Member States, both foreign origin and citizenship matter in the Eastern EU Member States, their roles depending on gender. Moreover, the evidence suggests that the effects of citizenship in the EU8 may be driven by the (predominantly ethnic Russian) non‐citizens in Estonia and Latvia.

Further analysis is necessary to evaluate the observed associations as causal relationships.

The study is the first to shed light on the role of foreign origin and citizenship in the EU8 and the EU15 in the comparative East‐West perspective. The findings have noteworthy implications for the targeting of national as well as EU‐wide integration policies.

This paper's main purpose is to evaluate immigrants’ demand for social assistance and services and identify the key barriers to social and labor market inclusion of immigrants in the European Union.

An online primary survey of experts from NGOs and public organizations working on immigrant integration in the member states of the European Union was carried out. The data is analyzed using simple comparative statistical methods; the robustness of the results is tested by means of logit and ordered logit statistical models.

The authors find that the general public in Europe has rather negative attitudes towards immigrants. Although the business community views immigrants somewhat less negatively, barriers to immigrant labor market inclusion identified include language and human capital gaps, a lack of recognition of foreign qualifications, discrimination, non‐transparent labor markets and institutional barriers such as legal restrictions for foreign citizens. Exclusion from higher education, housing and the services of the financial sector aggravate these barriers. Changes in the areas of salaried employment, education, social insurance, mobility and attitudes are seen as desired by members of ethnic minorities. The current economic downturn is believed to have increased the importance of active inclusion policies, especially in the areas of employment and education. These results appear to be robust with respect to a number of characteristics of respondents and their organizations.

The authors’ findings are not limited to the sample studied, which is supported by their robustness analysis. However an extended opinion survey of the ethnic minority population is required to more accurately examine the problems faced by diverse groups of immigrants across EU member states.

The findings of the study call for more effective diversity management and integration strategies to ensure non‐discrimination and better integration of ethnic minorities into the labor markets of member states.

There are few studies using primary survey data that have identified a wide range of barriers and challenges to economic integration faced by ethnic minorities in an enlarged European Union. The cross‐national opinion survey uniquely reflects views and suggestions of practitioners and immigrant minorities themselves.

Economic theory predicts that unemployment benefits may increase expected income and reduce its volatility, thereby attracting immigrants to countries which implement such programs. This article aims to explore whether and how changes in countries’ unemployment benefit spending (UBS) affect immigration.

Data are collected for 19 European countries over the period 1993‐2008. The relationship between immigration flows and UBS is first tested using the OLS technique. Instrumental variable (IV) and generalised method of moments (GMM) are then used to address reverse causality.

While the OLS estimates suggest the existence of a moderate within‐country welfare magnet effect for the inflows of non‐EU immigrants, the IV approach reveals that the impact is substantially smaller and statistically insignificant when GMM techniques are implemented.

Since information on the immigrants’ country of origin is not available, it is not possible to exclude that for immigrants coming from certain areas, unemployment benefits constitute a strong incentive to immigrate. This hypothesis awaits further research, once detailed data is available.

This paper complements previous literature on immigration and welfare by exploring the endogenous nature of welfare spending. The empirical results provide insights into the interaction between immigration and welfare policies.

Are ethnic specialization and thus a downward sloping labor demand curve fundamental features of labor market competition between ethnic groups? In a general equilibrium model, this chapter argues that spillover effects in skill acquisition and social distances between ethnic groups engender equilibrium regimes of skill acquisition that differ in their implications for ethnic specialization. Specifically, fundamental relationships through which relative group sizes determine whether ethnic specialization arises and in what degree are established. Thus, this chapter theoretically justifies a downward sloping labor demand curve and explains why some ethnic groups earn more than others, ethnic minorities underperforming or outperforming majorities.