Cross-national differences in the economic integration of female migrants

Worldwide, significant progress has been made towards gender equality in recent decades. However, persistent disparities remain: women continue to earn less than men and face greater obstacles in career advancement. The enduring issue of the "gender pay gap" reflects these challenges. Surprisingly, despite the growing gender-migrational diversity of the European workforce, research has largely treated women as a homogeneous group, overlooking critical intersections between gender and immigration background.
This paper addresses this gap by exploring how immigration background intersects with gender wage inequalities and how these inequalities vary across European countries. Using pooled data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC, 2011–2020), it seeks to enhance our understanding of cross-national differences in wage disparities between immigrant and native women. Specifically, it addresses two key questions: (1) To what extent do European countries differ in the wage penalties faced by immigrant women compared to their native counterparts? (2) To what extent can these cross-national differences be explained by structural features of the labour market?

The findings reveal that immigrant women, particularly those from non-EU countries, experience the most pronounced wage penalties compared to native women, with substantial variation across EU countries. These disparities appear partly attributable to structural labour market factors, underscoring the need for nuanced, intersectional analyses.

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