Untapped Potential: Professional Degree Recognition and (Un)paid Work of Migrant Women

Lidia Gutu , Bundesinstitut für Bevölkerungsforschung (Federal Institute for Population Research)
Sophia Schmitz, BiB

Immigrant women exhibit worse labor market outcomes and perform more unpaid work than immigrant men and native-born women in most industrial countries (Donato, Bhumika and Jacobs, 2014; Frank & Hou 2015). In addition, given same levels of human capital, immigrant women are more likely to work in low-skill occupations and in lower hierarchical positions than their native peers. (Adsera & Ferrer, 2014; Fendel and Kosyakova, 2023) Barriers to skill transferability and subsequent educational downgrading can explain a large fraction of the native-immigrant gaps in paid employment. (Hendricks & Schoellman, 2018). However, previous literature on labor certification focused almost exclusively on pooled employment outcomes, neglecting the gender perspective. (Han & Kleiner,2021; Koumenta, Pagliero and Rostam-Afschar, 2020) We study the role of better degree recognition procedures on paid and unpaid labor of migrant women in the German context. To establish causality, we exploit the Federal Recognition Act of 2012 within a flexible difference-in-difference framework. We compare non-EU citizens eligible since 2012 for the standard degree recognition process to their EU peers, that have had access to the same process since 2004. We find that post-reform, women eligible to apply for degree recognition perform more paid work, as well as less housework than their ineligible peers. Women reduce their workload in most chores aside from childcare, for which we find null effects. We also focus our attention on professions in education and healthcare, where recognition of foreign qualifications plays a large role. Further implications on marital status and fertility are explored.

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 Presented in Session P3. Migration, Economics, Policies, History