000 02458nam a22004217u 4500
001 pwiiw7527
003 OSt
005 20260406120008.0
008 260225t2026 au ||||| |||| 00| ||eng d
040 _cOSt
041 _aeng
084 _aJ15
_aJ24
_aJ23
_aC81
_2jelc
100 1 _aTverdostup, Marina
245 1 0 _aBeyond occupational sorting: How skills shape task allocation and immigrant disadvantage
260 _aWien :
_bWiener Institut für Internationale Wirtschaftsvergleiche (wiiw),
_c2026.
300 _a52 S.,
_b15 Tables and 14 Figures,
_c30cm.
490 1 _awiiw Working Papers
_v271
520 _aImmigrants across Europe earn less and work in lower-quality jobs than natives, but the mechanisms underlying these disparities remain poorly understood. This paper asks whether immigrant disadvantage reflects barriers to accessing good jobs or skill deficits that persist even within similar positions. Using PIAAC Cycle 2 data (2018-2023) for eight European countries, we compare immigrants and natives working in the same occupation-industry cells and performing the same types of tasks. We find that immigrants score 35 to 40 points lower in literacy and numeracy than natives overall, with 70 to 75 percent of this gap persisting within jobs. Immigrants also perform fewer cognitively demanding tasks than natives in similar jobs. However, these task differences disappear entirely once we account for within-job skill gaps, while manual task use shows no immigrant-native differences at all. The evidence points to a skill-mediated mechanism: immigrants perform fewer complex tasks because they have lower cognitive proficiency, not because employers restrict their access to such work. This finding redirects policy attention from workplace discrimination toward skill development and credential recognition as the key margins for improving immigrant labour market integration.
650 _aImmigration
650 _acognitive skills
650 _ajob tasks
650 _askill mismatch
650 _alabour market integration
650 _aPIAAC
651 _aAustria
651 _aCzechia
651 _aFrance
651 _aGermany
651 _aItaly
651 _aLatvia
651 _aPoland
651 _aSpain
690 _aLabour, Migration and Income Distribution
700 1 _aWalter, Dora
830 0 _v271
_w7703
_twiiw Working Papers
856 4 0 _uhttps://wiiw.ac.at/p-7527.html
942 _cP
999 _c9158
_d9158