Six ISER researchers will be presenting papers at Migration: Global Development, New Frontiers, an interdisciplinary conference on migration, jointly organised by the
NORFACE Research Programme on Migration and the
Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM) at University College London on 10 – 13 April, 2013
- Szilvia Altorjai: Over-qualification of immigrants in the UKThis research looks at immigrants’ over-qualification (this is when someone’s qualification level exceeds the maximum qualification requirement of the job that she does). This paper examines data from the first wave of the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS) to assess whether or not migrant workers living in the UK are more likely to be over-qualified than UK natives.
- Dr Malcolm Brynin: The relationship of the public sector to ethnic occupational segregation and its effect on wages. The research examines to what extent work in the public sector reduces the ethnic pay gap. It finds that while the proportion of people from ethic minorities in an occupation always reduces wages (for both white and ethnic-minority employees) it does so far less for workers in the public sector, and for both men and women. The analysis also looks at the effect of gender and of the effect of being in specific minorities.
For men in the private sector the minorities are on average paid less than white employees in all cases except one, but they are actually paid more on average in the public sector. This difference remains for women but is much weaker. The private sector does not penalise as much while nor does the public sector offer as much protection.
- Dr Gundi Knies and Dr Alita Nandi: Life Satisfaction, Ethnicity and Neighbourhoods: Is There an Effect of Neighbourhood Ethnic Composition on Life Satisfaction?
Gundi Knies, Alita Nandi, Lucinda Platt. There is considerable debate about the advantages and disadvantages of minority ethnic group concentration. However, to our knowledge, no studies have so far evaluated the extent to which different levels of own or other group concentration impact on subjective well-being itself.
Exploiting the opportunities offered by an exceptional source of data we therefore bring together three research strands, those on ethnic segregation, neighbourhood effects and wellbeing to explore for the first time in the UK the mediating effect of neighbourhood context on life satisfaction of ethnic minority groups. Using a unique dataset for the UK, Understanding Society, linked with a range of neighbourhood characteristics from a number of different sources, the research looks at variation in life satisfaction of different ethnic groups living in Great Britain, and examines the extent to which neighbourhood ethnic composition is related to life satisfaction how this relationship varies across different ethnic groups.
- Dr Simonetta Longhi: The Effect of Diversity on WellbeingIndividual subjective wellbeing is likely to influence, and be influenced by, interactions with other people in the community. Do people prefer to live in more diverse areas, surrounded by people with different countries of birth, ethnicity, religion, education, and/or doing a different type of job, or do they prefer to live in homogeneous areas?
Preliminary results suggests that white British people living in more diverse areas have on average lower levels of life satisfaction than those living in less diverse areas. However, there seems to be no impact of diversity on satisfaction of British people belonging to an ethnic minority and of immigrants.
- Yvonni Markaki: Do Countries Adapt to Immigration? (Longhi and Markaki) This paper combines the European Survey on Income and Living Conditions (EU SILC) and the European Labour Force Survey (EU LFS) to analyse the impact that immigration, and the cultural diversity it generates, have on labour market opportunities of people living in European countries. Our aim is to analyse whether differences in the impact of immigration across countries are related to the diversity of the immigrant population, to differences in immigration histories and in institutions across countries.