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The General and the Task-Specific Human Capital of Migrants: Host Country Perspective

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The Economic Geography of Cross-Border Migration

Part of the book series: Footprints of Regional Science ((VRS))

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Abstract

This chapter analyses immigrant-native human capital gap and factors behind it in fifteen European countries. It employs a broad definition of human capital, incorporating the general human capital and the specific human capital, which refers to the task-specific abilities accumulated and developed through performing certain job tasks. The chapter conducts a twofold analysis, relying on the Programme of International Assessment of Adult of Competencies (PIAAC). Firstly, it explores immigrant-native disparities in inner abilities, measured by the literacy and numeracy skills. Secondly, the research tackles the immigrant-native gaps in on-the-job use of cognitive skills, measured by self-reported intensity of literacy, numeracy and information and communication technology skills use at work. The results indicate that immigrants face a number of disadvantages that may persist independently of their inner abilities. Immigrant-native gaps in skills use at work indicate that immigrants are not sufficiently well assimilated in the European labour markets. Therefore, an underuse of immigrants’ skills and competencies is an important dimension of the immigrants’ integration issue.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Threshold was chosen arbitrary, as there is a considerable variation of share of immigrants across countries and the lowest shares are under 4%.

  2. 2.

    All countries, except Greece and Slovenia, were surveyed in the first round (2011–2012). The latter countries were surveyed in 2014–2015. Survey wave is controlled for in the regression analysis.

  3. 3.

    Different compositions of immigrant population across analyzed countries have to be acknowledged. Economic and social assimilation may be easier for certain immigration groups, for instance, for Slovaks in Czech Republic. Unfortunately, PIAAC data does specify a country of immigrant’s origin, therefore, we cannot precisely evaluate an origin-related assimilation heterogeneity.

  4. 4.

    For detailed technical description of PIAAC dataset see: OECD (2013). ‘Technical Report on the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC)’, OECD Publishing. http://www.oecd.org/site/piaac/_Technical%20Report_17OCT13.pdf.

  5. 5.

    All background questions used to derive skill use measures provide ordinal responses as follows: 1—‘never use’; 2—‘use less than once a month’; 3—‘use less than once a week, but at least once a month’; 4—‘use at least once a week, but not every day’; 5—‘use every day’.

  6. 6.

    Number of Jackknife replications is determined by 80 replication weights multiplied by 10 plausible values, and additionally weighted by a single population weight per one plausible value (\(80 \times 10 + 1 \times 10\)).

  7. 7.

    As a robustness checks, we estimated the identical model with literacy or numeracy skill controlled for. The results were robust.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Innsbruck, Universitätsstraße 15, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria

    Maryna Tverdostup

  2. University of Tartu, Narva Maantee 18, 51009, Tartu, Estonia

    Tiiu Paas

Authors
  1. Maryna Tverdostup
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  2. Tiiu Paas
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Correspondence to Maryna Tverdostup .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Jheronimus Academy of Data Science, 'S-Hertogenbosch, Noord-Brabant, The Netherlands

    Karima Kourtit

  2. McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada

    Bruce Newbold

  3. Jheronimus Academy of Data Science, 'S-Hertogenbosch, Noord-Brabant, The Netherlands

    Peter Nijkamp

  4. The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

    Mark Partridge

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Tverdostup, M., Paas, T. (2021). The General and the Task-Specific Human Capital of Migrants: Host Country Perspective. In: Kourtit, K., Newbold, B., Nijkamp, P., Partridge, M. (eds) The Economic Geography of Cross-Border Migration. Footprints of Regional Science(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48291-6_16

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