Cross-Occupational Effects of Immigration on Native Wages in the UK

Alfano, Marco and McKenzie, Ross and Roy, Graeme (2023) Cross-Occupational Effects of Immigration on Native Wages in the UK. Applied Economics Letters. ISSN 1350-4851

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Abstract

This article estimates the effect of immigration into an occupation on the wages of natives working in other, better-paid occupations. Using Annual Population Survey data from the UK we rank occupations by the Standard Occupation Classification provided by the ONS and find that increases in the migrant/native ratio raise average wages of natives working in the next higher ranked occupation by around 0.332%. Our findings have important implications for policy and public discourse. They suggest that debates over the economic impacts of migration often ignore the potential spill-over benefits that a migrant can bring to the outcomes for native workers elsewhere in the wage distribution, particularly in lower wage occupations