Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T19:35:50.249Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ethnic inequality in retirement income: a comparative analysis of immigrant–native gaps in Western Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 May 2017

JAN PAUL HEISIG ,
BRAM LANCEE  and
JONAS RADL
JAN PAUL HEISIG
Affiliation:
WZB Berlin Social Science Center, Germany.
BRAM LANCEE
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
JONAS RADL*
Affiliation:
Department of Social Sciences, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain.
*
Address for correspondence: Jonas Radl, Department of Social Sciences, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Calle Madrid 135,28903 Getafe, Spain E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Previous research unequivocally shows that immigrants are less successful in the labour market than the native-born population. However, little is known about whether ethnic inequality persists after retirement. We use data on 16 Western European countries from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC, 2004–2013) to provide the first comparative study of ethnic inequalities among the population aged 65 and older. We focus on the retirement income gap (RIG) between immigrants from non-European Union countries and relate its magnitude to country differences in welfare state arrangements. Ethnic inequality after retirement is substantial: after adjusting for key characteristics including age, education and occupational status, the average immigrant penalty across the 16 countries is 28 per cent for men and 29 per cent for women. Country-level regressions show that income gaps are smaller in countries where the pension system is more redistributive. We also find that easy access to long-term residence is associated with larger RIGs, at least for men. There is no clear evidence that immigrants’ access to social security programmes, welfare state transfers to working-age households or the strictness of employment protection legislation affect the size of the RIG.

Keywords

immigrationethnic inequalityretirement incomepension systemsEuropecomparative researchwelfare stateEuropean Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC)
Type
Article
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 38 , Issue 10 , October 2018 , pp. 1963 - 1994
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adema, W., Fron, P. and Ladaique, M. 2011. Is the European welfare state really more expensive? OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Paper, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Paris.Google Scholar
Adsera, A. and Chiswick, B. R. 2006. Are there gender and country of origin differences in immigrant labor market outcomes across European destinations? Journal of Population Economics, 20, 3, 495–526.Google Scholar
Blossfeld, H.-P., Bucholz, S. and Kurz, K. 2011. Aging Populations, Globalization and the Labor Market: Comparing Late Working Life and Retirement in Modern Societies. Edward Elgar Publishers, Cheltenham, UK.10.4337/9781849805858Google Scholar
Bolzman, C. 2012. Democratization of ageing: also a reality for elderly immigrants? European Journal of Social Work, 15, 1, 97–113.Google Scholar
Borjas, G. J. and Bratsberg, B. 1996. Who leaves? The outmigration of the foreign-born. The Review of Economics and Statistics, 78, 1, 165–76.Google Scholar
Brady, D. and Finnigan, R. 2014. Does immigration undermine public support for social policy? American Sociological Review, 79, 1, 17–42.Google Scholar
Bratsberg, B., Raaum, O. and Røed, K. 2010. When minority labor migrants meet the welfare state. Journal of Labor Economics, 28, 3, 633–76.Google Scholar
Brown, R. L. and Prus, S. G. 2004. Social transfers and income inequality in old age. North American Actuarial Journal, 8, 4, 30–6.Google Scholar
Büchel, F. and Frick, J. 2004. Immigrants in the UK and in West Germany – relative income positions, income portfolio, and redistribution effects. Journal of Population Economics, 17, 3, 553–81.Google Scholar
Büchel, F. and Frick, J. R. 2005. Immigrants’ economic performance across Europe – does immigration policy matter? Population Research and Policy Review, 24, 2, 175–212.Google Scholar
Collet, E. and Petrovic, M. 2014. The Future of Immigrant Integration in Europe: Mainstreaming Approaches for Inclusion. Migration Policy Institute Europe, Brussels.Google Scholar
Crawford, R., Keynes, S. and Tetlow, G. 2014. From me to you? How the UK state pension system redistributes. Working Paper W14/20, Institute for Fiscal Studies, London.Google Scholar
Dörr, S. and Faist, T. 1997. Institutional conditions for the integration of immigrants in welfare states: a comparison of the literature on Germany, France, Great Britain, and the Netherlands. European Journal of Political Research, 31, 4, 401–26.Google Scholar
Ebbinghaus, B. 2011. Introduction: studying pension privatization in Europe. In Ebbinghaus, B. (ed.), The Varieties of Pension Governance: Pension Privatization in Europe. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 3–22.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199586028.003.0001Google Scholar
Eurostat 2013. Description of Target Variables: Cross-sectional and Longitudinal. Eurostat, Brussels.Google Scholar
Evandrou, M. 2000. Social inequalities in later life: the socio-economic position of older people from ethnic minority groups in Britain. Population Trends, 101, 11–18.Google Scholar
Fleischmann, F. and Dronkers, J. 2010. Unemployment among immigrants in European labour markets: an analysis of origin and destination effects. Work, Employment & Society, 24, 2, 337–54.Google Scholar
Ganzeboom, H., De Graaf, P. M. and Treiman, D. J. 1992. A standard international socio-economic index of occupational status. Social Science Research, 21, 1, 1–56.Google Scholar
Ginn, J. and Arber, S. 2001. Pension prospects of minority ethnic groups: inequalities by gender and ethnicity. British Journal of Sociology, 52, 3, 519–39.Google Scholar
Goedeme, T. 2015. MetaSILC 1: The Content and Cross-country Comparability of the EU-SILC Income Variables. Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium.Google Scholar
Heath, A. and Cheung, S. Y. (eds) 2007. Unequal Chances: Ethnic Minorities in Western Labour Markets. Oxford University Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
Heisig, J. P. 2015. Late-career Risks in Changing Welfare States: Comparing Germany and the United States Since the 1980s. Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Heisig, J. P., Schaeffer, M. and Giesecke, J. 2017. The Costs of Simplicity: Why Multilevel Models May Benefit from Accounting for Cross-Cluster Differences in the Effects of Controls (January 27, 2017). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2703431.Google Scholar
Helbling, M. 2013. Validating integration and citizenship policy indices. Comparative European Politics, 11, 5, 555–76.Google Scholar
Hochfellner, D. and Burkert, C. 2013. Employment in retirement. Continuation of a working career or essential additional income? Zeitschrift für Gerontologie und Geriatrie, 46, 3, 242–50.Google Scholar
Hogan, R. and Perrucci, C. C. 1998. Producing and reproducing class and status differences: racial and gender gaps in U.S. employment and retirement income. Social Problems, 45, 4, 528–49.Google Scholar
Hogan, R. and Perrucci, C. C. 2007. Black women: truly disadvantaged in the transition from employment to retirement income. Social Science Research, 36, 3, 1184–99.Google Scholar
Holzmann, R. and Koettl, J. 2015. Portability of pension, health, and other social benefits: facts, concepts, and issues. CESifo Economic Studies, 61, 2, 377–415.Google Scholar
Kogan, I. 2006. Labor markets and economic incorporation among recent immigrants in Europe. Social Forces, 85, 2, 697–721.Google Scholar
Koopmans, R. 2010. Trade-offs between equality and difference: immigrant integration, multiculturalism and the welfare state in cross-national perspective. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 36, 1, 1–26.Google Scholar
Koopmans, R. 2013. Multiculturalism and immigration: a contested field in cross-national comparison. Annual Review of Sociology, 39, 1, 147–69.Google Scholar
Lancee, B. 2012. Immigrant Performance in the Labour Market. Bonding and Bridging Social Capital. Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Lancee, B. 2016. The negative side effects of vocational education. A cross-national analysis of the relative unemployment risk of young non-western immigrants in Europe. American Behavioral Scientist, 60, 5/6, 659–79.Google Scholar
Lewis, J. B. and Linzer, D. A. 2005. Estimating regression models in which the dependent variable is based on estimates. Political Analysis, 13, 4, 345–64.Google Scholar
Marier, P. and Skinner, S. 2008. The impact of gender and immigration on pension outcomes in Canada. Canadian Public Policy, 34, 4, S59–78.Google Scholar
Meyer, T., Bridgen, P. and Andow, C. 2013. Free movement? The impact of legislation, benefit generosity and wages on the pensions of European migrants. Population, Space and Place, 19, 6, 714–26.Google Scholar
Mika, T. and Tucci, I. 2006. Alterseinkommen bei Zuwanderern. Gesetzliche Rente und Haushaltseinkommen bei Aussiedlern und Zuwanderern aus der Türkei und dem ehemaligen Jugoslawien im Vergleich zur deutschen Bevölkerung [Old age income among immigrants. Public pension and household income of ‘Aussiedler’ and immigrants from Turkey and former Yugoslavia in comparison to the German population]. Deutsche Rentenversicherung, 61, 7–8, 456–83.Google Scholar
Möhring, K. 2015. Employment histories and pension incomes in Europe. A multilevel analysis of the role of institutional factors. European Societies, 17, 1, 3–26.Google Scholar
Nannestad, P. 2007. Immigration and welfare states: a survey of 15 years of research. European Journal of Political Economy, 23, 2, 512–32.Google Scholar
Niessen, J., Huddleston, T. and Citron, L. 2007. Migrant Integration Policy Index. British Council and Migration Policy Group, Brussels.Google Scholar
O'Rand, A. M. and Henretta, J. C. 1999. Age and Inequality: Diverse Pathways Through Later Life. Volume 8, Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado.Google Scholar
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 2013. Pensions at a Glance: OECD and G20 Indicators. OECD Publishing, Paris.Google Scholar
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 2015 a. Pensions at a Glance: OECD and G20 Indicators. OECD Publishing, Paris.Google Scholar
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 2015 b. Pensions at a Glance: Pension Calculator. Available online at http://www.oecd.org/els/public-pensions/pensionsataglancepensioncalculator.htm [Accessed 16 June 2015].Google Scholar
Pichler, F. 2011. Success on European labor markets: a cross-national comparison of attainment between immigrant and majority populations. International Migration Review, 45, 4, 938–78.Google Scholar
Price, D., Glaser, K., Ginn, J. and Nicholls, M. 2016. How important are state transfers for reducing poverty rates in later life? Ageing & Society, 36, 9, 1794–825.Google Scholar
Radl, J. 2013. Labour market exit and social stratification in Western Europe: the effects of social class and gender on the timing of retirement. European Sociological Review, 29, 3, 654–68.Google Scholar
Royston, P. 2004. Multiple imputation of missing values. Stata Journal, 4, 3, 227–41.Google Scholar
Sainsbury, D. 2006. Immigrants’ social rights in comparative perspective: welfare regimes, forms in immigration and immigration policy regimes. Journal of European Social Policy, 16, 3, 229–44.Google Scholar
Schmidt-Catran, A. W. and Spies, D. C. 2016. Immigration and welfare support in Germany. American Sociological Review, 81, 2, 242–61.Google Scholar
Van Hook, J. and Zhang, W. 2011. Who stays? Who goes? Selective emigration among the foreign-born. Population Research and Policy Review, 30, 1, 1–24.Google Scholar
Vlachantoni, A., Feng, Z., Evandrou, M. and Falkingham, J. 2015. Ethnicity and occupational pension membership in the UK. Social Policy & Administration, 49, 7, 801–23.Google Scholar
Warnes, A. M., Friedrich, K., Kellaher, L. and Torres, S. 2004. The diversity and welfare of older migrants in Europe. Ageing & Society, 24, 3, 307–26.Google Scholar
Warnes, A. M. and Williams, A. 2006. Older migrants in Europe: a new focus for migration studies. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 32, 8, 1257–81.Google Scholar
Whitehouse, E. 2006. New indicators of 30 OECD countries’ pension systems. Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, 5, 3, 275–98.Google Scholar
Zubair, M. and Norris, M. 2015. Perspectives on ageing, later life and ethnicity: ageing research in ethnic minority contexts. Ageing & Society, 35, 5, 897–916.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Heisig supplementary material

Heisig supplementary material 1

Download Heisig supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 2.2 MB