Immigration and the gender wage gap

This paper investigates the effects of immigration on the gender wage gap. Using a detailed individual French dataset, we shed lights on the strong feminization of the immigrant workforce which coincides with a rise in the gender wage gap from 1990 to 2010. Our theoretical model predicts that a shift in the supply of female workers increases the gender wage gap when men and women are imperfect substitutes in production. Our structural estimate points to an imperfect substitutability between men and women workers of similar education, experience and occupation. Our econometric result indicates that a 10% increase in the relative supply of immigrant female workers lowers by 4% the relative wage of female native workers belonging to the same education-experience group. Accounting for cross-group effects, our simulations show that the rise in the relative number of female immigrants decreases the relative wage of female native workers, thereby contributing to a widening native gender wage gap.