2003 “Unemployment and earnings for second generation immigrants in Sweden: ethnic background and parent composition

Abstract: Studies of first generation immigrants often show that labour market outcomes differ greatly between different immigrant groups compared to the native population. This issue is also of high importance as regards the children of immigrants, born in the immigrant country. Previous studies have not been able to analyse the labour market outcomes for second-generation immigrants in the way done in this study. We are able to (i) identify several groups of second-generation immigrants with different ethnic backgrounds and (ii) identify the parent composition, i.e. whether one or both parents of the individual are foreign born. The results show that the labour market outcomes differ greatly between different groups of second generation immigrants compared to native-born Swedes. The pattern is similar to that in the parent generation. The outcome is more favourable if one parent is born in Sweden compared to having both parents foreign born. There is also a tendency that the outcome is more favourable if the mother is native born than if the father is