Immigrant Earnings Assimilation in France: Evidence from a Pseudo-Cohort Approach (Séance en français)

We provide the first attempt in France to evaluate the so-called "Immigrant Assimilation Hypothesis". This hypothesis predicts, within the Human Capital theoretical setting, the relative convergence of immigrants’ wages since arrival towards those of natives. The empirical issue is then to estimate if and how fast immigrants’ wages catch up those of natives and thus to infer about the degree of the economic integration of immigrants. Coupling the second national specific survey on immigrants, TeO (2008), with its forerunner, MGIS (1992), the pseudo-panel approach adopted in this paper nets out the cohort bias and the period bias, both interfering significantly in our cross-sectional estimates. Three profiles of immigrants stand out: (1) for Sub-Saharan and North African immigrants, the recent highly-educated arrival cohorts record higher earnings convergence rate but witnessed at entry higher earnings disadvantage and worse labor market conditions compared to their less-educated earlier cohorts, thus making the occurrence of the earnings crossover with natives unlikely; (2) conversely, the Turkish and South-East Asian group improves its relative earnings position across successive cohorts via a reduction in the entry earnings gap which shortens considerably the duration before the catch-up earnings ; (3) lastly, the group of Portugal is by far the less skilled group but the most successful: all of its successive cohorts manage to reach earnings parity more and more precociously and, better still, overtake native earnings. Finally, the negative relationship emerging between economic successfulness and skill level suggests, with immigrants’ low return to education, the existence of an education-to-job mismatch which particularly hits highly qualified immigrants.