Alan Barrett

Does Training Generally Work? The Returns to In-Company Training

Using data from surveys of enterprises in Ireland in 1993 and 1996–97, the authors estimate the productivity effects of general training, specific training, and all types of training combined. Statistically significant positive effects on productivity are found both for all training and for general training, but not for specific training. The positive effect of general training remains when the researchers control for factors such as changes in work organization, corporate re-structuring, firm size, and the initial level of human capital in the enterprise. The impact of general training varies positively with the level of capital investment.

Are Ireland's Immigrants Integrating into Its Labor Market?

Ireland has experienced a remarkable change in its migratory patterns in recent years and has moved from experiencing large-scale emigration to receiving significant inflows. In this paper, we use data from a nationally representative sample of immigrants and natives drawn in 2005 to assess the occupational attainment of immigrants in Ireland relative to natives. It is found that immigrants, on average, are less likely to be in high-level occupations controlling for factors such as age and education. When looked at by year of arrival, it appears as if immigrants who arrived more recently have lower occupational attainment relative to earlier arrivals, thereby suggesting a process of integration. However, a closer analysis shows that the observation of better occupational attainment for earlier arrivals can be explained by a change in the national origin mix of Irelands immigrants, with immigrants from the New Member States of the European Union having the lowest occupational attainment. Within national groups there is generally no clear evidence of improved occupational attainment over time.

Earnings Inequality, Returns to Education and Immigration into Ireland

Increasing earnings inequality has been an important feature of the US and UK labour markets in recent years. The increase appears to be related to an increased demand for skilled labour and an increase in the returns to education. In this paper we examine what has happened to earnings inequality and the returns to education in Ireland between 1987 and 1997. We find that while both increased between 1987 and 1994, the increases slowed dramatically between 1994 and 1997. This is somewhat surprising as the exceptional growth in the Irish economy occurred from 1994 on. We look to immigration as being a contributing factor to this pattern because a large group of skilled workers flowed into the Irish labour market between 1994 and 1997. We develop a model of the Irish labour market and use it to simulate the impact of an increase in skilled labour. The simulation suggests that immigration did indeed reduce earnings inequality. This result is an interesting corollary to work from the US that shows the immigration of unskilled workers increasing earnings inequality.

Immigrants in a Booming Economy: Analysing Their Earnings and Welfare Dependence

Ireland’s exceptional economic growth in recent years has led to an influx of immigrants. Given the favourable economic climate into which these immigrants are arriving, it is interesting to ask how their earnings and welfare dependence compare with the native population. To the extent that strong economic growth produces good labour market opportunities for immigrants, earnings disadvantages may be lessened and any tendency towards welfare dependence may be reduced. Data from a nationally representative sample drawn in 2004 are used to assess the earnings of immigrants in Ireland relative to the native population and also the rate of welfare receipt across the two groups. Immigrants are found to earn 18 percent less than natives, controlling for education and years of work experience. However, this single figure hides differences across immigrants from English-speaking and non-English speaking countries. We also find evidence of a wage gap for immigrants with third level educations, relative to comparable natives. On average, immigrants are half as likely to have been in receipt of social welfare payments in the previous twelve months relative to natives. A difference in welfare participation remains when we control for the higher education attainment of immigrants.

The Immigrant Earnings Disadvantage Across the Earnings and Skills Distributions: The Case of Immigrants from the EU's New Member States

As the movement of population from the New Member States (NMS) of the EU to the older members is a relatively new flow, it is important to build up our knowledge of who is moving within Europe and how they are performing in their destinations. In this paper, we analyse the earnings of immigrants in Ireland from the NMS using a new large-scale dataset on employees in Ireland. In so doing, we add to the emerging strand in the literature on immigrant earnings that looks beyond average earnings differentials and considers variations in such differentials across the earnings and skills distributions. We do this partly by using quantile regressions and also by analyzing earnings differentials within educational categories. We find that the average earnings difference between immigrants from the NMS and natives is between 10 percent and 18 percent, depending on the controls used. However, the difference is found to be either non-existent or low for people with low skill levels and for people at the lower end of the earnings distribution. The difference is higher for those at the upper ends of the skills and earnings distributions. This suggests that the transferability of human capital is a crucial determinant of the immigrant-native earnings gap for NMS immigrants in Ireland.

Rising Wage Inequality, Returns to Education and Labour Market Institutions: Evidence from Ireland

Institutional factors and increased supply of skilled labour have been advanced in an effort to explain why some countries have experienced smaller increases in earnings dispersion and in returns to education than the USA and the UK. Ireland has had a highly centralized wage bargaining structure and the supply of skilled labour has increased sharply in recent years; hence, relatively little change in earnings dispersion might be expected. We compare the distribution of earnings in Ireland in 1987 and 1994 and find a surprisingly large growth in earnings dispersion. In addition, using a decomposition technique, we find that much of this is accounted for by increasing returns to measured.

Immigrant Welfare Receipt across Europe

The issue of welfare receipt by immigrants is highly controversial across Europe. In this paper, we assess whether immigrants are more likely to receive welfare payments relative to natives across a range of European countries. Using the European Union Survey on Income and Living Conditions for 2007, we find very little evidence that immigrants are indeed more likely to receive such payments when all payments are considered together. This is true whether we use raw data or regression analysis in which we control for relevant characteristics. We do find evidence of higher rates of poverty among immigrants. When combined with the results on welfare receipt, this raises a question over the effectiveness of welfare systems in protecting immigrants from poverty across Europe.

RETURNING TO THE QUESTION OF A WAGE PREMIUM FOR RETURNING MIGRANTS

Using data from a large-scale survey of employees in Ireland, we estimate the extent to which people who have emigrated from Ireland and returned earn more relative to comparable people who have never lived abroad. In so doing, we are testing the hypothesis that migration can be part of a process of human capital formation. We find through OLS estimation that returners earn 7 percent more than comparable stayers. We test for the presence of self-selection bias in this estimate but the tests suggest that the premium is related to returner status. The premium holds for both genders, is higher for people with post-graduate degrees and for people who migrated beyond the EU to the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The results show how emigration can be positive for a source country when viewed in a longer term context.

EU Enlargement and Ireland's Labour Market

Ireland, along with Sweden and the UK, allowed full access to its labour market to the citizens of the accession countries when the EU enlarged in May 2004. Given the limited number of countries that opened up and the rapid pace of economic growth in Ireland around 2004, a significant inflow was expected. However, the rate of inflow exceeded all expectations. Based on census information, the number of EU10 nationals living in Ireland grew from around 10,000 in 2002 to 120,000 in 2006. Data on inflows suggests that this number could have reached 200,000 by 2008 or 4.5 percent of the population. The EU10 immigrants have very high employment rates and also have levels of education that are comparable to the native labour force in Ireland. However, they appear to earn considerably less than the native labour force and also to be in lower grade occupations. They have impacted positively on the Irish economy in terms of GNP growth. This is because wages grew more slowing in Ireland than would otherwise have been the case as a result of the labour supply increase brought about by this immigration flow.

Social Isolation, Loneliness and Return Migration: Evidence from Older Irish Adults

Across the subjects of economics, sociology and demography, much has been written about the difficulties faced by immigrants. However, much less attention has been paid to the difficulties which return migrants face when they come back to live in their countries of birth. A number of studies suggest that return migrants can experience significant re-adjustment challenges. In this paper, we add to this strand of research by examining the extent to which a group of returned migrants experience higher degrees of social isolation and loneliness compared to compatriots who never lived outside their country of birth. The data used are from the first wave of the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA). Our results suggest that social isolation is a significant feature of the lives of return migrants and that the degree of social isolation is typically stronger for people who spent longer away and who have returned more recently.