Dipartimento di Sociologia e Ricerca Sociale

Panel data on municipal waste and recycling.

Supplemental_Material_(FelliniGuetto) for A “U-Shaped” Pattern of Immigrants’ Occupational Careers? A Comparative Analysis of Italy, Spain, and France by Ivana Fellini and Raffaele Guetto in International Migration Review

The international literature hypothesized a “U-shaped” pattern of immigrants’ occupational trajectories from origin to destination countries due to the imperfect transferability of human capital. However, empirical evidence supporting this hypothesis is available only in single-country studies and for “old,” Anglo-Saxon migration countries with deregulated labor markets. This article compares Italy, Spain, and France, providing evidence that the more segmented the labor market, the higher immigrants’ occupational downgrade on arrival, independently from skills transferability and other individual characteristics. Paradoxically, the more segmented the labor market, the more important the acquisition of host-country specific human capital for subsequent upward mobility.