TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Hirsch, Boris
AU  - Jahn, Elke J.
AU  - Toomet, Ott
AU  - Hochfellner, Daniela
        TI  - Does Better Pre-Migration Performance Accelerate Immigrants' Wage Assimilation?
        PY  - 2013/Feb/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 7240
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp7240
        AB  - This paper analyzes wage assimilation of ethnic German immigrants to Germany. We use unique administrative data that include a standardized measure of immigrants' pre-migration wage based on occupation, industry, tenure, qualification, and the German wage structure. We find that immigrants experience a substantial initial wage disadvantage compared to natives. During their first 15 years in the host country they manage to close a considerable part of this gap, though assimilation is only partial. A 10% higher pre-migration wage translates into a 1.6% higher wage in Germany when also controlling for educational attainment, thus pointing at partial transferability of human capital acquired in the source country to the host country's labor market.
We also find that wage assimilation is significantly accelerated for immigrants with a higher pre-migration wage. Our results are in line with strong complementarities between general skills and host country-specific human capital, in particular proficiency in the host country's language.
        KW  - migration
KW  - labor market assimilation
KW  - transferability of human capital
KW  - ethnic Germans
        ER  -