FirmStrat Work Organizations, Employment Segregation, and Immigrant Economic Assimilation

• Han, JooHee; Hermansen, Are Skeie; Madsen, Aleksander Å. & Lillehagen, Mats Eirik (2026). Same neighbourhood, same employer? Residential proximity and workplace concentration among immigrants. European Sociological Review. ISSN 0266-7215. doi: https:/academic.oup.com/esr/advance-article/doi/10.1093/esr/jcag027/8763716. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Living near one another can channel immigrants toward workplaces through social connections and information flow, shared local opportunity structures, and other residentially patterned pathways, yet few studies link residential proximity to employment outcomes among immigrants and their children. Using Norwegian linked employer–employee administrative data with detailed residential locations, we study how neighbourhood co-residence is tied to workplace concentration and individual wages among coworkers of immigrant and native background. We compare observed co-employment of neighbours against a simulated baseline of random workplace allocation within municipalities and adjust for stable local geography using neighbourhood fixed effects. We find that immigrants are considerably more likely than natives living in the same neighbourhood to work with immigrant neighbours, particularly coethnics from the same country of origin. Immigrant neighbour exposure concentrates workers in low-wage, immigrant-dense establishments but is only modestly tied to wages, suggesting that such pathways may reinforce workplace segregation without clear individual economic costs or benefits. Children of immigrants, in contrast, are not overexposed to immigrant-background neighbours at work compared with natives. These patterns tie residential proximity to immigrants’ workplace concentration in ways consistent with neighbourhood-based network mechanisms, while weaker links in the second generation point to broader integration into the mainstream economy.

• Lillehagen, Mats Eirik (2026). Educational sorting and ethnic inequality in occupational prestige among children of immigrants. Acta Sociologica. ISSN 0001-6993. doi: 10.1177/00016993261465194. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This study investigates the occupational prestige of children of immigrants compared to natives in Norway, focusing on the first job after graduation. Using high-quality registry data from 2003 to 2014 ( N  = 530,340), the analysis examines ethnic disparities in occupational prestige for six origin-based groups: African, Indian, Pakistani, Turkish, Vietnamese and European. The findings reveal that children of immigrants generally perform similarly to natives, with some notable differences: children of Indian origin experience a prestige advantage, while those of African origin face disadvantages. These differences are largely explained by detailed educational attainment, which plays a significant role in determining occupational status. Quantile regression shows that ethnic differences in occupational prestige are generally small and consistent across the prestige distribution. However, some groups, particularly those of Indian descent, exhibit a significant prestige advantage at the top of the distribution. This study contributes to understanding ethnic stratification in labour markets by showing how educational sorting influences occupational outcomes and challenges stereotypes about immigrant integration. It offers new insights into how children of immigrants navigate the occupational hierarchy, aligning with human capital theories while also addressing broader implications for integration and social mobility. The findings are of value to immigration and stratification research, providing a nuanced view of ethnic inequalities in the labour market.

• Hermansen, Are Skeie; Penner, Andrew; Boza, István; Elvira, Marta M.; Godechot, Olivier & Hällsten, Martin [Show all 15 contributors for this article] (2025). Immigrant–native pay gap driven by lack of access to high-paying jobs. Nature. ISSN 0028-0836. 644, p. 969–975. doi: 10.1038/s41586-025-09259-6. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Immigrants to high-income countries often face considerable and persistent difficulties in the labour market, whereas their native-born children typically experience economic progress. However, little is known about the extent to which these immigrant–native earnings differences stem from unequal pay when doing the same work for the same employer versus labour market processes that sort immigrants into lower-paid jobs. Here, using data from nine European and North American countries, we show that the segregation of workers with immigrant backgrounds into lower-paying jobs accounts for about three-quarters of overall immigrant–native earnings differences. Although within-job pay inequality remains notable for immigrants in several countries, our results demonstrate that unequal access to higher-paying jobs is the primary driver of the immigrant–native pay gap across a range of institutionally and demographically diverse contexts. These findings highlight the importance of policies aimed at reducing between-job segregation, such as language training, job training, job search assistance programmes, improving access to domestic education, recognizing foreign qualifications, and settlement programmes aimed at enhancing access to job-relevant information and networks. Policies that target employer bias in hiring and promotion decisions are also likely to be effective, whereas measures aimed at ensuring equal pay for equal work may have more limited scope for further progress in closing the immigrant–native pay gap.

• Borgen, Nicolai T.; Hermansen, Are Skeie & Sandsør, Astrid Marie Jorde (2025). Who Climbs the Ivory Tower? Social Origins of Academic Faculty in an Egalitarian Welfare State. Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World. 11. doi: 10.1177/23780231251377209. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Although there is an extensive literature on intergenerational mobility in education, including the completion of PhD degrees, far less is known about the transition into academic faculty positions. Here, the authors use administrative microdata following entire birth cohorts born from 1955 to 1985 in Norway, an egalitarian welfare state, to investigate the social origins of academic faculty. Despite publicly funded higher education and competitive wages for PhD positions, arguably removing many barriers to entry, the present findings reveal persistent disparities in the likelihood of becoming a faculty member. Differences in earlier stages of the educational career largely account for these disparities, indicating that disadvantaged family background does not appear to constitute an additional barrier to becoming a faculty member when comparing individuals with PhD degrees. However, more advantageous social origins influence the likelihood of employment at more prestigious institutions and higher earnings among faculty members, indicating that socioeconomic origins impact academic careers beyond their effects on entering academia. Overall, these findings show that within an egalitarian context designed to promote equality of opportunity, social origins continue to shape access and progression within academia.

• Larsen, Edvard Nergård; Madsen, Aleksander Å & Hermansen, Are Skeie (2025). Blending in or moving on? Immigrant coworkers, assimilation, and employee turnover. Social Forces. ISSN 0037-7732. doi: 10.1093/sf/soaf161. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  How does the presence of immigrant coworkers shape the likelihood that minority employees stay or leave their jobs? This study uses linked employer–employee administrative data covering the entire Norwegian labor market to investigate how workplace immigrant concentration influences turnover among immigrants and their native-born children. Building on theories of organizational demography, we ask whether working alongside a higher share of immigrant-background coworkers fosters employee retention—consistent with mechanisms of social contact and homophily—or instead prompts workplace exit, as suggested by group threat and competition theories. Our findings reveal that greater representation of immigrant-background coworkers significantly reduces turnover among immigrants, especially when contact occurs within same-skill occupations. The exposure effects reducing the likelihood of workplace exit are also stronger when immigrant-background employees share the same national origin with their minority coworkers and when minorities are better represented among top earners in the organization. For children of immigrants, the effects of coworker composition are weaker, consistent with theories of assimilation and the weakening of ethnic boundaries across generations. Taken together, these results support social contact theories, which claim that a more inclusive work environment and coworker support in more ethnically diverse workplace contexts foster organizational attachment and reduce turnover among immigrant-background minority employees. However, minority employees’ increased retention in organizations with higher immigrant concentration may also reinforce patterns of ethnic workplace segregation.

• Lillehagen, Mats Eirik & Hermansen, Are Skeie (2025). Entering the mainstream economy? Workplace segregation and immigrant assimilation. Social Forces. ISSN 0037-7732. 103(4), p. 1508–1537. doi: 10.1093/sf/soae162. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Why do foreign-born immigrant workers often concentrate in low-wage, minority-dense workplaces? Do immigrants’ native-born children—who typically acquire better language skills, education, and country-specific knowledge—experience improved access to workplaces in the mainstream economy? Using economy-wide linked employer–employee administrative data from Norway, we analyze both ethnic and economic workplace segregation across immigrant generations. We find that, on average, 32% of immigrants’ coworkers and 16% of second-generation immigrants’ coworkers have immigrant backgrounds, compared to 7% for natives. In terms of economic segregation, the average percentile rank of coworkers’ salaries is 36, 49, and 52 for immigrants, children of immigrants, and natives, respectively. A formal decomposition analysis shows that differences in employee, workplace, and residential location characteristics collectively explain 54–74% of ethnic and 79–84% of economic workplace segregation for immigrants and their children. Key factors driving this segregation in both immigrant generations include education, occupational attainment, industry of employment, having an immigrant manager, and the concentration of immigrant neighbors. This suggests that both skill-based sorting and network-related processes contribute to immigrant–native workplace segregation. However, children of immigrants’ improved access to less immigrant-dense and higher-paying workplaces, compared to immigrants, is primarily driven by differential skill-based sorting (i.e., higher education and shifts in occupation and industry placement). Our findings reveal a sharp decline in workplace segregation relative to natives as children of immigrants advance into the mainstream economy, highlighting the central role of assimilation in skill profiles for workplace integration across immigrant generations.

• Drange, Ida; Helland, Håvard & Hermansen, Are Skeie (2024). Unionization, licensure and workplace variation in pay inequality between immigrants and natives. Socio-Economic Review. ISSN 1475-1461. 22(2), p. 701–736. doi: 10.1093/ser/mwad075. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Organizational research has revealed considerable variation in immigrant–native pay inequalities across workplace contexts. However, less is known about how broader labor market institutions intersect in the local dynamics of wage setting between employees of immigrant and native backgrounds. We argue that union density and higher shares of employees in licensed occupations in workplaces constrain organizational opportunity structures for unequal pay according to immigrant backgrounds. Our analysis of longitudinal linked employer–employee administrative data for the Norwegian labor market shows that the wage gap between immigrants and natives decreases with increasing workplace unionization, but almost exclusively for immigrants who are union members. Next, licensure raises pay at the individual and workplace levels, although any reduction in immigrant–native pay gaps is contingent on immigrants’ access to licensed jobs. Our findings support the claim that institutional regulation in the workplace reduces the organizational scope of unequal pay based on immigrant status.

• Borgen, Nicolai Topstad; Hermansen, Are Skeie & Sandsør, Astrid Marie Jorde (2024). Who Climbs the Ivory Tower? Social origins of academic faculty in an egalitarian welfare state. SocArXiv. doi: 10.31235/osf.io/c4xqz. Full text in Research Archive
• Godechot, Olivier; Tomaskovic-Devey, Donald; Boza, István; Henriksen, Lasse Folke; Hermansen, Are Skeie & Hou, Feng [Show all 29 contributors for this article] (2024). The Great Separation: Top Earner Segregation at Work in Advanced Capitalist Economies. American Journal of Sociology. ISSN 0002-9602. 130(2), p. 439–495. doi: 10.1086/731603. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Earnings segregation at work is an understudied topic in social science, despite the workplace being an everyday nexus for social mixing, cohesion, contact, claims making, and resource exchange. It is all the more urgent to study as workplaces, in the last decades, have undergone profound reorganizations that could affect the magnitude and evolution of earnings segregation. Analyzing linked employer-employee panel administrative databases, the authors estimate the evolving isolation of higher earners from other employees in 12 countries: Canada, Czechia, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, South Korea, and Sweden. They find in almost all countries a growing workplace isolation of top earners and dramatically declining exposure of top earners to bottom earners. The authors perform a first exploration of the main factors accounting for this trend: deindustrialization, workplace downsizing, restructuring (including layoffs, outsourcing, offshoring, and subcontracting), and digitalization contribute substantially to the increase in top earner segregation. These findings open up a future research agenda on the causes and consequences of top earner segregation.

• Hijzen, Alexander; Lillehagen, Mats Eirik & Zwyzen, Wouter (2024). Job mobility, reallocation and wage growth: A tale of two countries. European journal of industrial relations. ISSN 0959-6801. 0(0), p. 1–19. doi: 10.1177/09596801241278135. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Job reallocation is a key driver of aggregate wage growth, but its role in different economic systems remains understudied. This paper takes a comparative view and analyses the role of job mobility in job reallocation and aggregate wage growth in Norway, comparing it to published results for the United States. The results show first that, as expected, overall job mobility is much lower in Norway compared to the United States, likely reflecting the compressed wage distribution. However, the speed of job reallocation from low-wage to high-wage firms is similar to or even higher than in the United States. Second, in both Norway and the United States, the process of job reallocation is strongly pro-cyclical. This is entirely driven by the pro-cyclical nature of net job-to-job mobility from low- to high-wage firms. Third, for Norway, the bulk of aggregate wage growth reflects on-the job wage growth, while its cyclicality is largely driven by net job-to-job mobility from low to high-wage firms. This paper shows that reallocation is not necessarily less efficient in more egalitarian societies with lower mobility and different wage structures.

• Olivier, Godechot; Nils, Neumann; Paula, Apascaritei; István, Boza; Martin, Hällsten & Folke, Henriksen Lasse [Show all 18 contributors for this article] (2023). Ups and downs in finance, ups without downs in inequality. Socio-Economic Review. ISSN 1475-1461. 21(3), p. 1601–1627. doi: 10.1093/ser/mwac036. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The upswing in finance in recent decades has led to rising inequality, but do downswings in finance lead to a symmetric decline in inequality? We analyze the asymmetry of the effect of ups and downs in finance, and the effect of increased capital requirements and the bonus cap on national earnings inequality. We use administrative employer–employee-linked data from 1990 to 2019 for 12 countries and data from bank reports, from 2009 to 2017 in 13 European countries. We find a strong asymmetry in the effect of upswings and downswings in finance on earnings inequality, a weak, if any, mitigating effect of capital requirements on finance’s contribution to inequality, and a restructuring but no absolute effect of the bonus cap on financiers’ earnings. We suggest that while rising financiers’ wages increase inequality in upswings, they are resilient in downswings and thus downswings do not contribute to a symmetric decline in inequality.

• Borgen, Solveig Topstad & Hermansen, Are Skeie (2023). Horizontal Advantage: Choice of Postsecondary Field of Study Among Children of Immigrants. Demography. ISSN 0070-3370. 60(4), p. 1031–1058. doi: 10.1215/00703370-10823537. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Educational expansion has raised the influence of sorting across postsecondary educational fields on children's future life chances. Yet, little is known about horizontal ethnic stratification in the choice of field of study among children of immigrant parents, whose parents often have moderate absolute levels of education relative to native-born parents but tend to be positively selected on education relative to nonmigrants in the origin country. Using rich administrative data from Norway, we study the educational careers of immigrant descendants relative to the careers of children of native-born parents. Our results show that children of immigrants from non-European countries have a higher likelihood of entering higher education and enrolling in high-paying fields of study compared with children of natives, despite having poorer school grades and disadvantaged family backgrounds. However, immigrant parents' positive selectivity provides limited insight into why children of immigrants exhibit high ambitions later in their postsecondary educational careers. These findings document a persistent pattern of horizontal ethnic advantage in postsecondary education in which ambitious children of immigrants are more likely to enter into more prestigious and economically rewarding fields of study than their fellow students with native-born parents.

• Godechot, Olivier; Neumann, Nils; Apascaritei, Paula; Boza, István; Hällsten, Martin & Henriksen, Lasse Folke [Show all 18 contributors for this article] (2022). Ups and downs in finance, ups without downs in inequality. Socio-Economic Review. ISSN 1475-1461. 21(3), p. 1601–1627. doi: 10.1093/ser/mwac036. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Abstract The upswing in finance in recent decades has led to rising inequality, but do downswings in finance lead to a symmetric decline in inequality? We analyze the asymmetry of the effect of ups and downs in finance, and the effect of increased capital requirements and the bonus cap on national earnings inequality. We use administrative employer–employee-linked data from 1990 to 2019 for 12 countries and data from bank reports, from 2009 to 2017 in 13 European countries. We find a strong asymmetry in the effect of upswings and downswings in finance on earnings inequality, a weak, if any, mitigating effect of capital requirements on finance’s contribution to inequality, and a restructuring but no absolute effect of the bonus cap on financiers’ earnings. We suggest that while rising financiers’ wages increase inequality in upswings, they are resilient in downswings and thus downswings do not contribute to a symmetric decline in inequality.

• Penner, Andrew; Petersen, Trond; Hermansen, Are Skeie; Rainey, Anthony; Boza, István & Elvira, Marta [Show all 29 contributors for this article] (2022). Within-job gender pay inequality in 15 countries. Nature Human Behaviour. doi: 10.1038/s41562-022-01470-z. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Abstract Extant research on the gender pay gap suggests that men and women who do the same work for the same employer receive similar pay, so that processes sorting people into jobs are thought to account for the vast majority of the pay gap. Data that can identify women and men who do the same work for the same employer are rare, and research informing this crucial aspect of gender differences in pay is several decades old and from a limited number of countries. Here, using recent linked employer–employee data from 15 countries, we show that the processes sorting people into different jobs account for substantially less of the gender pay differences than was previously believed and that within-job pay differences remain consequential.

• Petersen, Trond; Hermansen, Are Skeie & Birkelund, Gunn Elisabeth (2022). Likestilling: kjønn, arbeid og familiepolitikkens gjennombrudd. In Frønes, Ivar & Kjølsrød, Lise (Ed.), Det norske samfunn : bind 2. Gyldendal Akademisk. ISSN 9788205572300. p. 85–106. Full text in Research Archive
• Hermansen, Are Skeie (2022). Ethnic enclaves, early school leaving, and adolescent crime among immigrant youth. European Sociological Review. ISSN 0266-7215. 39(3), p. 400–417. doi: 10.1093/esr/jcac034. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Abstract Spatial concentration of immigrant minorities raises concerns about the intergenerational consequences of place-based ethnic inequalities. This study asks how socioeconomic properties of the ethnic neighbourhood environment during adolescence predict future criminal behaviour and early school leaving among immigrant youth using administrative data from Norway. The results show that immigrant youth’s adolescent exposure to better-educated immigrant neighbours from the same origin country is related to lower risks of criminal engagement and higher likelihoods of completing upper-secondary education, while growing up in areas with less-educated coethnics is associated with adverse outcomes. Although effect sizes are modest, these relationships are robust to adjustment for a broad set of background characteristics and fixed effects at the level of neighbourhoods and national-origin groups. Coethnic neighbours’ educational resources are more strongly associated with adolescent crime and early school leaving among immigrant youth from disadvantaged family backgrounds. Overall, these findings support the predictions of influential theories of assimilation which emphasize that access to social capital and socioeconomic resources found within local ethnic enclaves shape the future life chances of immigrant youth.

• Hermansen, Are Skeie (2022). Visualizing Intergenerational Immigrant Assimilation at Work. Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World. 8. doi: 10.1177/23780231211072590. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The extent to which successive immigrant generations experience economic progress is a fundamental yardstick of assimilation and future ethnic stratification in the increasingly diverse societies of the rich West. In this regard, measuring how immigrants and local-born adult descendants of immigrants are distributed across different labor market segments provides clues about their relative assimilation into the mainstream economy. Drawing on linked employer-employee administrative data from Norway, the author uses heat plots to visualize differences in ethnic and socioeconomic characteristics of workplace contexts by immigrant background. The visualization reveals a striking overall pattern of intergenerational assimilation, whereby immigrant descendants are employed in workplaces that are more like those of nonmigrant natives in terms of immigrant concentration and, in particular, coworkers’ salaries, education, and occupational task profiles compared with the immigrant generation. However, less-successful members of the second generation found in workplaces with less prestigious job characteristics still experience disproportionate levels of ethnic workplace segregation.

• Hermansen, Are Skeie & Midtbøen, Arnfinn Haagensen (2022). Etterkommere av innvandrere: Mellom integrasjon og utenforskap? In Frønes, Ivar & Kjølsrød, Lise (Ed.), Det norske samfunn - bind 1. Gyldendal Norsk Forlag A/S. ISSN 9788205563414. p. 63–89. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  I dette kapittelet tar vi for oss hvordan norskfødte barn av innvandrerforeldre – etterkommere – klarer seg i Norge. Vi skiller mellom ulike indikatorer for integrasjon, med utdanning og arbeid på den ene siden og erfaringer med diskriminering og sosial og kulturell inklusjon/eksklusjon på den andre. Forskningen tegner et sammensatt bilde. Etterkommere av innvandrere opplever framgang i både utdanning og arbeidsliv sammenlignet med sine egne foreldre. Når det gjelder kulturelle verdier, religiøsitet og identitet, viser forskningen at det pågår en gradvis integrasjonsprosess i den forstand at etterkommernes verdimessige og nasjonale orientering er likere majoriteten sammenlignet med sine foreldre og innvandrere på samme alder. Analyser av disse integrasjonsindikatorene antyder imidlertid viktige skillelinjer knyttet til hudfarge og religiøs tilhørighet. Minoritetsungdom med foreldre fra Asia og Afrika, og i særlig grad de som definerer seg som muslimer, opplever langt oftere enn ungdom med bakgrunn fra Europa og Nord-Amerika at det stilles spørsmål ved deres tilhørighet til Norge. Forskningen tegner et tilsvarende pessimistisk bilde av etnisk diskriminering, her skjer det ikke en reduksjon over generasjonene.

• Hermansen, Are Skeie & Penner, Andrew M. (2022). Trends in Women’s and Men’s College Majors across Four Decades in Norway. Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World. 8(1-2). doi: 10.1177/23780231221081692. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Women are now more likely to receive college degrees than men, yet important differences remain in the college majors of women and men. This visualization depicts women’s and men’s college majors across four decades in Norway. The authors document the movement of women into higher paying majors and show that men are increasingly majoring in fields that are gender integrated. However, women remain overrepresented in female-dominated majors, and men remain in overrepresented in majors that have historically been well paid. This visualization thus underscores the progress that has been made in achieving gender parity in education as well as the challenges that remain.

• Lillehagen, Mats Eirik & Birkelund, Gunn Elisabeth (2022). Ethnic inequalities in the transition from education to work: a longitudinal analysis of school, college and university graduates. Journal of Education and Work. ISSN 1363-9080. 35(4), p. 357–373. doi: 10.1080/13639080.2022.2073337. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Each year, students graduate from schools, colleges and universities. Some find a job quickly – others do not. Delays in the transition from education to work have been associated with scarring effects and detrimental effects on later employment and career progression. Increasing numbers of graduates from universities and colleges are descendants of immigrants. The labour market performance of children of immigrants arguably constitutes an important test of the long-term structural integration of ethnic minorities. Using comprehensive Norwegian administrative data on complete birth cohorts, we apply discrete time hazard regression to examine ethnic inequalities in relative transition rates from education to work, comparing majority graduates to 10 groups of Norwegian-born second-generation immigrants from the 1973 to 1997 birth cohorts (N = 964,450 persons with 1,901,171 person-years). We find clear evidence of ethnic inequalities in transition rates, where children of immigrants or African origin fare the worst. Second, the overall patterns mostly remain unaffected when adjusted for factors like educational field, marriage status, children and parental background. Third, we find that the minority disadvantages are less marked at lower levels of education for some groups.

• Hermansen, Are Skeie; Hundebo, Pål Oskar & Birkelund, Gunn Elisabeth (2022). Spatial Assimilation at a Halt? Intergenerational Persistence in Neighborhood Contexts among Immigrant Minorities in Norway. International Migration Review. ISSN 0197-9183. 56(4), p. 1069–1106. doi: 10.1177/01979183211067771. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Spatial assimilation theory claims that immigrants’ acculturation and socioeconomic progress will lead to converging neighborhood attainment relative to non-migrant natives. Recently, it has been argued that equalization of local services and life chances across neighborhoods in egalitarian welfare states may delay spatial assimilation by reducing immigrants’ incentives to move out of low-income areas with many (co-ethnic) immigrant neighbors. In this article, we extend this argument to study whether neighborhood equalization also contributes to intergenerational persistence in neighborhood contexts among descendants of immigrants in Norway. Using administrative data, we find that immigrant descendants as adults often remain in neighborhood contexts that resemble their childhood neighborhoods, characterized by relative economic disadvantage and comparatively few ethnic majority residents. Intergenerational persistence in neighborhood contexts is strongest among descendants of immigrants from Pakistan, the Middle East, and Africa. The remaining immigrant–native gaps in spatial economic inequality largely reflect differences in individuals’ education and earnings, family background, and childhood neighborhood context, but these factors matter less for ethnic neighborhood segregation. For both economic and ethnic dimensions of neighborhood attainment, childhood neighborhood context is the factor that matters most in accounting for immigrant–native gaps, whereas individual socioeconomic attainment is the least important. Overall, our findings point to a pattern of “uneven assimilation” among immigrant descendants, where spatial assimilation is slow despite rapid socioeconomic progress across immigrant generations in the egalitarian Norwegian welfare state.

• Birkelund, Gunn Elisabeth; Lancee, Bram; Larsen, Edvard Nergård; Polavieja, Javier G; Randl, Jonas & Yemane, Ruta (2021). Gender Discrimination in Hiring: Evidence from a Cross-National Harmonized Field Experiment. European Sociological Review. ISSN 0266-7215. 38(3), p. 337–354. doi: 10.1093/esr/jcab043. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Abstract Gender discrimination is often regarded as an important driver of women’s disadvantage in the labour market, yet earlier studies show mixed results. However, because different studies employ different research designs, the estimates of discrimination cannot be compared across countries. By utilizing data from the first harmonized comparative field experiment on gender discrimination in hiring in six countries, we can directly compare employers’ callbacks to fictitious male and female applicants. The countries included vary in a number of key institutional, economic, and cultural dimensions, yet we found no sign of discrimination against women. This cross-national finding constitutes an important and robust piece of evidence. Second, we found discrimination against men in Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, and the UK, and no discrimination against men in Norway and the United States. However, in the pooled data the gender gradient hardly differs across countries. Our findings suggest that although employers operate in quite different institutional contexts, they regard female applicants as more suitable for jobs in female-dominated occupations, ceteris paribus, while we find no evidence that they regard male applicants as more suitable anywhere.

• Hermansen, Are Skeie; Tomaskovic-Devey, Donald; Rainey, Anthony; Avent-Holt, Dustin; Bandelj, Nina & Boza, Istvan [Show all 27 contributors for this article] (2020). Rising between-workplace inequalities in high-income countries. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS). ISSN 0027-8424. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1918249117. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  It is well documented that earnings inequalities have risen in many high-income countries. Less clear are the linkages between rising income inequality and workplace dynamics, how within- and between-workplace inequality varies across countries, and to what extent these inequalities are moderated by national labor market institutions. In order to describe changes in the initial between- and within-firm market income distribution we analyze administrative records for 2,000,000,000+ job years nested within 50,000,000+ workplace years for 14 high-income countries in North America, Scandinavia, Continental and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia. We find that countries vary a great deal in their levels and trends in earnings inequality but that the between-workplace share of wage inequality is growing in almost all countries examined and is in no country declining. We also find that earnings inequalities and the share of between-workplace inequalities are lower and grew less strongly in countries with stronger institutional employment protections and rose faster when these labor market protections weakened. Our findings suggest that firm-level restructuring and increasing wage inequalities between workplaces are more central contributors to rising income inequality than previously recognized.

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• Umblijs, Janis & Hermansen, Are Skeie (2023). Can A New Name Open Closed Doors? Foreign-Sounding Names and Immigrant Earnings. Full text in Research Archive
• Larsen, Edvard Nergård (2023). Diskriminering i møte med Oslo Kommune. Full text in Research Archive
• Madsen, Aleksander Å.; Lillehagen, Mats Eirik & Hermansen, Are Skeie (2023). Immigrant Managers’ Recruitment Practices and Career Influence: Ethnic Homophily, Networks, and Assimilation. Full text in Research Archive
• Larsen, Edvard Nergård; Kotsadam, Andreas & Hermansen, Are Skeie (2023). What characterizes firms that discriminate? Full text in Research Archive
• Larsen, Edvard Nergård; Madsen, Aleksander Å. & Hermansen, Are Skeie (2023). Blending In or Moving On? Workplace Ethnic Diversity, Immigrant Assimilation, and Employee Turnover. Full text in Research Archive
• Madsen, Aleksander Å.; Lillehagen, Mats Eirik & Hermansen, Are Skeie (2023). Immigrant Managers’ Recruitment Practices and Career Influence: Ethnic Homophily, Networks, and Assimilation. Full text in Research Archive
• Hermansen, Are Skeie (2023). Lik lønn for likt arbeid? Kjønn, lønn og foreldreansvar. Full text in Research Archive
• Hermansen, Are Skeie (2023). Lik lønn for likt arbeid? Kjønn, lønn og foreldreansvar. Full text in Research Archive
• Hermansen, Are Skeie (2023). Innvandrere og deres etterkommere i Norge – integrasjon, utenforskap og sosial mobilitet. Full text in Research Archive
• Hermansen, Are Skeie (2023). Within-job gender pay inequality in Norway and across the rich world. Full text in Research Archive
• Hermansen, Are Skeie (2023). Lik lønn for likt arbeid? Kjønn, lønn og foreldreansvar. Full text in Research Archive
• Hermansen, Are Skeie (2023). Assimilation at Work: Immigrants in the Norwegian Labor Market. Full text in Research Archive
• Hermansen, Are Skeie & Umblijs, Janis (2023). Can A New Name Open Closed Doors? Foreign-Sounding Names and Immigrants’ Labor Market Careers. Full text in Research Archive
• Madsen, Aleksander Å.; Lillehagen, Mats Eirik; Han, JooHee & Hermansen, Are Skeie (2023). Immigrant Managers’ Recruitment Practices and Career Influence. Full text in Research Archive
• Hermansen, Are Skeie (2022). How immigrant pay gaps are shaped by within-job inequality and segregation in European and North American labor markets. Full text in Research Archive
• Hermansen, Are Skeie (2022). How immigrant pay gaps are shaped by within-job inequality and segregation in European and North American labor markets. Full text in Research Archive
• Hermansen, Are Skeie (2022). How immigrant pay gaps are shaped by within-job inequality and segregation in European and North American labor markets. Full text in Research Archive
• Borgen, Solveig Topstad (2022). Reaching Higher? Horizontal Stratification in the Educational Careers of Immigrant Descendants. Full text in Research Archive
• Borgen, Solveig Topstad & Hermansen, Are Skeie (2022). Reaching Higher? Horizontal Stratification in the Educational Careers of Immigrant Descendants. Full text in Research Archive
• Larsen, Edvard Nergård (2022). NSA Presentation: Which employers discriminate, and which do not? Estimating heterogeneity in hiring discrimination using registry-linked experimental data and honest causal forests. Full text in Research Archive
• Larsen, Edvard Nergård (2022). ISF Presentation: Which employers do (not) discriminate? Estimating heterogeneity in ethnic hiring discrimination. Full text in Research Archive
• Crabtree, Charles; Gaddis, S. Michael; Holbein, John & Larsen, Edvard Nergård (2022). Racially Distinctive Names Signal Both Race/Ethnicity and Social Class. Sociological Science. Full text in Research Archive
• Hermansen, Are Skeie (2022). Olje, sand eller grus i maskineriet? Innvandring og makt i det flerkulturelle Norge anno 2022. Full text in Research Archive
• Lillehagen, Mats Erik & Hermansen, Are Skeie (2022). Entering the Mainstream Economy? Workplace Segregation and Assimilation across Immigrant Generations. Full text in Research Archive
• Madsen, Aleksander Å. & Lillehagen, Mats Eirik (2022). Ethnic Differences in Access to Managerial Positions: An Intergenerational Approach. Full text in Research Archive
• Hermansen, Are Skeie (2022). Within-job gender pay inequality in Norway and across the rich world. Full text in Research Archive
• Gaddis, S. Michael; Larsen, Edvard Nergård; Crabtree, Charles & Holbein, John (2022). Discrimination Against Black and Hispanic Americans is Highest in Hiring and Housing Contexts: A Meta-Analysis of Correspondence Audits. Social Science Research Network (SSRN). Full text in Research Archive
• Lillehagen, Mats Eirik & Hermansen, Are Skeie (2021). Ethnic Workplace Segregation and Assimilation across Immigrant Generations in the Norwegian Labor Market. Full text in Research Archive
• Crabtree, Charles; Gaddis, S. Michael; Holbein, John & Larsen, Edvard Nergård (2021). Changes in the Amount and Type of Social Science Research on Discrimination: 1950 to 2015. Social Science Research Network (SSRN). Full text in Research Archive
• Drange, Ida; Helland, Håvard & Hermansen, Are Skeie (2020). Occupational licensing, unionization, and workplace variation in pay inequalities between immigrants and natives. Full text in Research Archive
• Hermansen, Are Skeie (2020). Lønnsforskjeller mellom bedrifter forklarer økt ulikhet i Norge. Forskning.no. ISSN 1891-635X. Full text in Research Archive
• Hermansen, Are Skeie (2020). Hva hjelper det å klappe for de lavtlønte? Morgenbladet. ISSN 0805-3847. Full text in Research Archive
• Hermansen, Are Skeie (2019). Sosial mobilitet og inkludering i arbeidslivet blant innvandrere og etterkommere. Full text in Research Archive
• Larsen, Edvard Nergård; Madsen, Aleksander Å. & Hermansen, Are Skeie (2022). Blending in or moving on? Workplace ethnic diversity, immigrant assimilation, and employee turnover. SocArxiv. Full text in Research Archive
• Lillehagen, Mats Erik & Hermansen, Are Skeie (2022). Entering the Mainstream Economy? Workplace Segregation and Immigrant Assimilation. SocArxiv. Full text in Research Archive

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