Economic Progress, Stagnation, or Decline? Occupational Mobility of Non-Eu Immigrants in Europe

The article aims to identify the trajectories of occupational mobility among non-EU immigrant workers in Europe and to test neoclassical human capital theory that predicts upward occupational mobility and labour market segmentation theories proposing immigrant confinement to the bottom end of the receiving society’s labour markets. We use data from survey and semi-structured interviews (2,859 and 357, respectively) with immigrants from Brazil, Ukraine, and Morocco in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Portugal, and Norway.
We find support for the thesis of segmented labour market theories of limited upward occupational mobility following migration. Frail legal status impacts negatively on upward mobility chances and men more often experience upward mobility after migration than women. Education obtained in the destination country is very important for migrants’ upward occupational mobility, bearing important policy implications with regards to migrants’ integration. Keywords: Migration; labour market; occupational mobility; segmented labour market; human capital theory