Why do foreign-born immigrant workers often concentrate in low-wage, minority-dense workplaces? Do immigrants’ native-born children—who typically acquire better language skills, education, and country-specific knowledge—experience improved access to workplaces in the mainstream economy? Using economy-wide linked employer–employee administrative data from Norway, we analyze both ethnic and economic workplace segregation across immigrant generations. We find that, on average, 32% of immigrants’ coworkers and 16% of second-generation immigrants’ coworkers have immigrant backgrounds, compared to 7% for natives. In terms of economic segregation, the average percentile rank of coworkers’ salaries is 36, 49, and 52 for immigrants, children of immigrants, and natives, respectively. A formal decomposition analysis shows that differences in employee, workplace, and residential location characteristics collectively explain 54–74% of ethnic and 79–84% of economic workplace segregation for immigrants and their children. Key factors driving this segregation in both immigrant generations include education, occupational attainment, industry of employment, having an immigrant manager, and the concentration of immigrant neighbors. This suggests that both skill-based sorting and network-related processes contribute to immigrant–native workplace segregation. However, children of immigrants’ improved access to less immigrant-dense and higher-paying workplaces, compared to immigrants, is primarily driven by differential skill-based sorting (i.e., higher education and shifts in occupation and industry placement). Our findings reveal a sharp decline in workplace segregation relative to natives as children of immigrants advance into the mainstream economy, highlighting the central role of assimilation in skill profiles for workplace integration across immigrant generations.

中文翻译：

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进入主流经济？工作场所隔离和移民同化


为什么外国出生的移民工人经常集中在低工资、少数族裔密集的工作场所？移民的本地出生的孩子——他们通常会获得更好的语言技能、教育和特定国家的知识——是否体验到在主流经济中进入工作场所的机会有所改善？使用来自挪威的整个经济范围内相互关联的雇主-雇员管理数据，我们分析了移民世代之间的种族和经济工作场所隔离。我们发现，平均而言，32% 的移民同事和 16% 的第二代移民同事具有移民背景，而本地人的这一比例为 7%。在经济隔离方面，移民、移民子女和本地人的同事工资的平均百分位分别为 36、49 和 52。正式的分解分析表明，员工、工作场所和居住地特征的差异共同解释了 54-74% 的移民及其子女的种族隔离和 79-84% 的经济工作场所隔离。在两代移民中推动这种隔离的关键因素包括教育、职业成就、就业行业、拥有移民经理以及移民邻居的集中度。这表明，基于技能的分类和与网络相关的过程都有助于移民-本地工作场所的隔离。然而，与移民相比，移民子女更容易进入移民密度较低、收入较高的工作场所，这主要是由基于技能的差异排序（即高等教育以及职业和行业安置的转变）驱动的。 我们的研究结果表明，随着移民子女进入主流经济，相对于本地人的工作场所隔离急剧下降，这凸显了同化在技能概况中对移民世代工作场所融合的核心作用。