Ethnic identity and the female native-immigrant employment gap in Sweden

Abstract: Immigration to Sweden has increased in recent decades with low employment records of foreign-born, especially among females. It is a political challenge to integrate immigrants into the labour market and in the ongoing debate, an integration factor that has been put forward is immigrant’s adaption of the majority identity in the host country. Using data from the European Social Survey, this thesis investigates the female native-immigrant employment gap in Sweden and contributes to the debate about the relationship between ethnic identity and labour market-outcomes. The results indicate that it exists an interethnic employment gap and being an immigrant leads to an employment penalty of 10%. Further, ethnic identity is negatively correlated with employment probabilities. Having a strong identity being an immigrant decreases the probability of employment by 6%.