Understanding the labour market impact of immigration in Britain

Marina Shapira, University of Edinburgh

The paper will present on-going research results on processes which affect population, society and the economy in contemporary Britain as a result of increased international migration flow. It investigates the impact of immigration on British labour market, with particular attention to the effects of immigration on the labour market outcomes of British born population. It explores the relationship between skill levels of British born workers, size and composition of the immigrant population, overall opportunity structure of the labour market and the labour market outcomes of British born workers at the level of local labour markets. The paper also offers inter-UK comparisons that enable the significance of differences in (a) policy (b) skill levels of immigrants and (c) socio-demographic characteristics of the British population within a shared UK labour market to be tested. The data sources selected (Labour Force Surveys, Annual Labour Force Surveys Local Areas data; the Annual Population Survey for 2004, 2005 and 2006 and the Office for National Statistics supplementary data: Local Areas Data Sets on Ethnicity). Multilevel regression technique is used for the analyses.