How precarious labour market trajectories generate path dependencies in commodified policy contexts: lesson learned from probabilistic and multistate approaches of migrant women’s labour market trajectories in Belgium
Karel Neels, University of Antwerp
The migrant-native gap in labour market outcomes in Belgium is among the largest of all OECD-countries. Using longitudinal data from the Belgian social security registers we show that migrant origin women have a lower probability than native women of entering sustainable employment, while also having a higher probability of leaving employment at shorter durations. Migrant women’s more precarious labour market trajectories give rise to a higher frequency of transitions between employment and unemployment, which we show is vital to take into account when comparing the impact of childbearing on maternal employment between migrant women and natives, and to account for the lower uptake of childcare and parental leave among migrant mothers.
About the speaker:
Karel Neels is professor of Social Statistics and Demography at the University of Antwerp (Belgium) and teaches hazard modelling in the MSc. in Statistics at KULeuven (Belgium). His research focusses on patterns of family formation of majority and migrant populations in Belgium and Europe, as well as the interconnection between family formation, labour market trajectories and wider economic and policy context.