Risk Factors of Labor-Market Insertion for Children of Immigrants in Switzerland

Author(s) : Andrés Guarin, Emmanuel Rousseaux

Source : https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-024-1141-6_3

Abstract:

This chapter studies the transition to the labor market in Switzerland of young adults who are children of immigrants. We focus on their ability to be employed in comparison to that of both first-generation immigrants and Swiss natives. We expect that those children of immigrants who were educated and socialized in Switzerland will benefit from the same opportunities as the Swiss natives. Using data from the Swiss Labor Force Survey, we first show that the employment situation for these children of immigrants is better than that of first-generation immigrants. We also show that, although the country of origin plays a smaller role for second-generation than for first-generation residents, origin-specific characteristics persist. From a methodological point of view, we suggest the preliminary use of data-mining tools to look more deeply into the research questions. Based on decision-tree modeling, this exploratory step highlights an interaction effect between the child’s and the father’s educational level. This interaction is established in a regression-based confirmatory step. We find that the educational level of the immigrant fathers plays a role in the labor-market integration of their children, particularly in the case of second-generation residents with low educational levels. Although our results tend to confirm the generation-as-leveler effect, both country of origin and individual resources significantly impact the second-generation young adults’ ability to access the Swiss labor market.