Emigration and wages: The EU enlargement experiment

Arbeitspapier

The enlargement of the European Union provides a unique opportunity to study the impact of the lifting of migration restrictions on the migrant sending countries. With EU enlargement in 2004, 1.2 million workers from Eastern Europe emigrated to the UK and Ireland. I use this emigration wave to show that emigration significantly changed the wage distribution in the sending country, in particular between young and old workers. Using a novel dataset from Lithuania, the UK and Ireland for the calibration of a structural model of labor demand, I find that over the period of five years emigration increased the wages of young workers by 6%, while it had no effect on the wages of old workers. Contrary to the immigration literature, there is no significant effect of emigration on the wage distribution between high-skilled and low-skilled workers.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 6111

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; International Migration ; Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials ; Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration ; Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics: Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population; Neighborhood Characteristics
• Subject: emigration ; EU enlargement ; European integration ; wage distribution ; EU-Erweiterung ; Internationale Wanderung ; Lohnniveau ; EU-Staaten

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Elsner, Benjamin
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2011

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/58582
• URN: urn:nbn:de:101:1-201111303434
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET