Occupational attainment among children of immigrants in norway: Bottlenecks into employment

Abstract

Labour market opportunities among children of immigrants is a crucial test of long-term structural integration of ethnic minorities, since these individuals have acquired linguistic fluency, educational qualifications, and work experience specific to their parents' destination country. Using comprehensive Norwegian administrative data on birth cohorts 1965-1982, this article examines whether second-generation immigrants experience disadvantages in access to employment and advantaged occupational positions compared to native peers with similar educational qualifications and social origins (N = 107,362). The results show that non-European ethnic minorities experience weaker labour market attachments relative to the native majority. Once employment is secured, however, there is no evident pattern of ethnic disadvantage in access to advantaged occupational positions. Insofar that ethnic stratification is reproduced between immigrants and their children in Norway, this appears not to happen via differential allocation to occupational positions, but primarily within the educational system and at the entrance to the labour market. © 2012 The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

Keywords

Author Keywords

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Author Affiliations

Department of Sociology and Human Geography, Universitetet i Oslo, Oslo, Oslo, Norway

Funding & Acknowledgements

Norges Forskningsråd

Grant: 158058

This work was carried out within the project Educational Careers: Attainment, Qualification and Transition to Work [Norwegian Research Council grant number 158058].

Norges Forskningsråd

This work was carried out within the project Educational Careers: Attainment, Qualification and Transition to Work [Norwegian Research Council grant number 158058].

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Occupational attainment among children of immigrants in norway: Bottlenecks into employment - Equal access to advantaged positions?

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