Immigrant Earnings Assimilation in France: Evidence from a Pseudo-Cohort Approach

We provide the first attempt in France to evaluate the Immigrant Assimilation Hypothesis. This latter predicts the convergence of immigrants’ wages since arrival towards those of natives. Coupling the only two national specific surveys on immigrants, our pseudo-panel methodology nets out the cohort and period effects. Three country-specific profiles 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 of arrival via a reduction in the entry earnings gap, shortening considerably the duration before the catch-up earnings ; (3) the group of Portugal is by far the less skilled group but the most successful: all successive cohorts manage to reach earnings parity more and more precociously and, better still, overtake native earnings. The negative relationship emerging between economic successfulness and skill level suggests, with the immigrants low return to education, the existence of an education-to-job mismatch.