Immigration and the Labour Market Outcomes of Natives in Developing Countries: A Case Study of South Africa

Nzinga Broussard, Ohio State University

This research is interested in the effects that immigration has on the labour markets in developing countries. Using census data from South Africa this paper examines the effect that immigration has on labour market outcomes of native-born South Africans. We estimate the impact of an increase in the number of workers with a particular set of skills on the labour market outcomes of native-born South Africans with the same set of skills. We also estimate the impact of an increase in skilled immigrants on the labour market outcomes of low-skilled native-born South Africans. Low-skilled immigrants increase the employment rates of low-skilled native-born South Africans while there appears to be no effect of skilled immigrants on the labour market outcomes of skilled natives. However, our results show that skilled immigrants have a crowding out effect on low-skilled black native-born workers while they stimulate the demand for low-skilled coloured native-born workers.