Under Pressure? Migration and Labor Market Integration in Norway

Immigrants in general and refugees in particular have lower labour market participation. This is a cause for concern with respect both to the welfare and social integration of immigrants, and to the future funding of the welfare state. The overarching research question of the UPMIN-project is: What institutional and contextual factors enhance the employment of immigrants? The main data source for the empirical studies is public administrative registers with individual-level information. The focus in the first part of the project is on the impact of institutional differences between Nordic countries immigrants' participation in working life. This is discussed in a conference paper (Heggebø & Elstad 2018) which points out that compared with Norway, Denmark has a weaker job security, while unemployment financial support is more limited in Sweden. The Nordic-comparative approach is also utilised in an article published in the journal European Societies (Gauffin, Heggebø & Elstad 2012). This study found small tendencies to lower employment among immigrants in Sweden than in Norway, probably related to the fact that legal regulations allow greater use of temporary employment in Sweden than in Norway. The study also classified the adult populations in different categories of work participation across eight years and found substantial similarities between Norway and Sweden as to the overall distributions of longstanding work-participation categories. The second part of the project focuses on the importance of the composition of the population, the industrial structure, local unemployment, policy measures, and other contextual factors for immigrants' employment levels in Norway. A widespread hypothesis is that large immigration will lead to mounting problems for including immigrants in paid employment. The article ?A growing precariat??, published by the journal Søkelys på arbeidslivet (Elstad & Heggebø 2019), shows that immigrants often have instable and insecure placements in work life. However, the proportion of the immigrants who encounter such persisting problems have not increased since the Millennium, in spite of large immigration during these years. How immigration influences work opportunities and wages for the previous resident population is analysed by a study published in Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies (Elstad & Heggebø 2020). Findings indicate that high immigration into a region can have a negative impact on work opportunities and work incomes for the resident population, in particular for low-educated natives. The overriding finding was nonetheless that not immigration, but general developmental trends in terms of growth or stagnation in the local economy were the central determinants for employment opportunities, both for immigrants and for other inhabitants in the region. Following the Introduction Act of 2004, a main component of the measures intended to promote both social integration and inclusion into paid work among refugees and family-reunited immigrants has been an integration programme. Its effects are analysed in a causality study which has been published in the Journal of Social Policy (Ugreninov & Turner 2021). The study approach is to compare work participation among refugees who arrived before or after the implementation of the Introduction Act. The researchers found trivial effects as regards men?s employment, but somewhat more positive effects among refugee women. A study of employment levels among a particularly disadvantaged category ? refugees and family-reunited immigrants from Africa and the Middle East ? will be published in NOVA?s Publication Series (Elstad 2021). This study attempts to reveal the causes of the substantial differences between the 50 largest Norwegian municipalities as to work inclusion of this category of immigrants. It emerged that employment levels for all population categories within each municipality correlated strongly. In particular, the study showed that the higher level of employment among low-educated natives, the higher work inclusion among these refugees from Africa and the Middle East. A growing municipal economy did also considerably promote work inclusion among these immigrants. The project researchers have additionally worked on other studies, so far only reported in unpublished manuscripts. The topics include, among others, economic incorporation of immigrants in the income and wealth hierarchy since 2000; the relationship between political party strength in municipal councils and work inclusion among immigrants; time trends as to immigrants? poverty and economic precarity; and sickness absence among immigrant women and other employees in care work. Project researchers have also participated in debates and exchanges, both in scientific fora and in mass media, about immigrant employment and research methods in this study field. Web: https://www.oslomet.no/forskning/forskningsprosjekter/upmin

De viktigste bidragene fra prosjektet kan knyttes til tre komplementære forhold (se for øvrig Sluttrapport for prosjektet): -Forskningsproduksjonen: En serie artikler publisert i nasjonale og internasjonale tidsskrifter. Prosjektet har slik sett bidratt til den nasjonale og internasjonale faglitteraturen på feltet arbeidsmarketsintegrering og migrasjon. -Forskningsbasert undervisning: både på masternivå (undervisning og masteroppgave) og gjennom utvikling og gjennomføring av et eget PhD-kurs gjennomført på OsloMet høsten 2020. -Generell formidling: Gjennom foredragsvirksomhet, debattinnlegg i fagtidsskrifter, populærvitenskapelig formidling, debatter i media, mv., har prosjektets deltakere hatt en aktiv rolle i en allmenn forskningsformidling og viktige og aktuelle samfunnsdebatter.

Immigrants in general, and refugees in particular, struggle to gain a firm attachment to the Norwegian labor market. This is worrying because the Norwegian welfare state is dependent upon high labor force participation, and high tax revenue, in order to survive in its present form. The overarching research question in the UPMIN project is: How can institutional and contextual factors make immigrants' employment rates go up? The UPMIN project is structured into two work packages. In Work Package 1 (WP1), we will investigate the effect of institutional settings for immigrants' labor market attachment. WP1 has a Scandinavian perspective, using Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish register data. WP1 consists of two separate studies. Study 1 focuses on employment protection legislation (EPL). EPL is considerably weaker in Denmark than in Norway, and Danish employers could therefore be more inclined to hire immigrants because the associated risk is less pressing. Study 2 focuses on temporary work contracts, the prevalence of which is much higher in Sweden than in Norway. The possibility to hire immigrants temporarily could act as a 'stepping stone' into more stable labor market attachment. In Work Package 2 (WP2), we will examine the impact of contextual factors on immigrants' employment outcomes, with a Norwegian regional perspective. WP2 consists of two separate studies. Study 1 looks at Norwegian settlement policy and local labor market conditions using individual-level register data. The impact of local labor demand, and industrial structure in the region (e.g. the presence of 'low-skill' and 'entry-level' jobs) could be vital for how fast - and how firmly - newly arrived immigrants become attached to the labor market. Study 2 looks at the Introduction Program, and the role played by Adult Education Centers in providing newly arrived refugees with basic qualifications. A comparative mix method design is utilized.