Education and income effects by women’s birthplaces

As shown in the previous section, having children strengthens the differences in employment trends among natives, EU and non-EU women. These three collectives are grouped accordingly in this subsection. Interaction terms of a woman’s origin with her level of education (Figure 1) and the household income (Figure 2) describe the variation in the effects of education and income by birthplace. Confidence intervals (see Table A.1. to A.4. in Appendix) are used to evaluate whether the slopes (employment differences between: (1) the higher and the lower educated and (2) the more and the less affluent households) are significantly different for Swiss, EU and non-EU women.

Figure 1 first shows that the positive effect of education on the level of participation is constant across birthplace for single women and childless women in partnerships. Nevertheless, significant differences appear for women with pre-school resident children. Consistent with our hypotheses, more pronounced differences are observed among Swiss women regarding the employment gap between women with high and low education levels. The difference in the employment rate between minimally and highly educated women is 29% for the Swiss group, whereas it is 10%

and 14% in the EU and non-EU countries, respectively. However, this strong and positive effect of education for Swiss women is not a clearly advantageous marker of labour market integration for the less skilled. Indeed, the strength of this effect is mainly attributed to the lower participation rate of Swiss women (54%) compared to EU migrants (75%) with low educational levels. As a result, Swiss women who hold a tertiary degree have a greater margin to differentiate their labour supply from that of the less qualified. These effects of education are similar to those in the fourth group, women with resident children aged 6 to 14 years. For EU and non-EU groups, the effect of educational level on participation is far less discriminatory. Whereas the difference is 26% between lower- and higher-educated Swiss women, the effect is almost flat for non-EU women and varies only by 6% among women from EU countries.

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Figure 1: Interactions of women's education level and country of birth by family composition ^(c)

(c) Predictive margins for employment and number of hours worked, controlled for women's socio-demographic characteristics, partners characteristics and contextual factors.

Variations in the effect of education on the number of hours worked per week based on birthplace are less evident. At its most significant, education has an additional, positive impact of two hours for highly educated EU women in a partnership without children. The interaction terms are otherwise not statistically significant.

0,4

Number of hours worked couples with children 0-5

Swiss

Number of hours worked couples with children 6-14

Swiss EU None-EU

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However, in contrast to immigrants, the relation for the number of hours worked is not linear for native women with children aged 0-14. Rather, it shows a U-shaped pattern, in which the medium educated spend the fewest hours at work. Furthermore, compared with immigrant women with the same educational attainment, they are the group with the shorter schedules.

Second, regarding household income, we observe a consistent effect across family types. This effect is characterized by a clear employment gap (lower participation and hours worked) for the wealthiest households. Again, the magnitude of this effect differs statistically between national origins but not in the household configurations in which we most expected is.

For couples without children, variation according to birthplace is mainly observed for the outcome of the participation equation. Marginal effects for non-EU countries suggest that this group is more responsive to household income: the gap in the probability of participating between the most and least affluent households is 22%. In comparison, this gap is 11% and% for EU and Swiss women, respectively. No difference appears for the number of hours worked.

In contrast to expectations, we do not find clear-cut differences among natives, EU immigrants and non-EU immigrants for women with pre-school resident children.

The slopes for household income do not differ for the participation equation. The gap in the probability of being employed between the most and least affluent households is 33% for non-EU women, 29% for EU women, and 27% for Swiss women. It is the number of hours worked that strengthens the differences in employment trends among these groups. Indeed, this effect is amplified for native women, whose variation (-8 hours) in the average workload is double that of non-EU and EU women (-4 hours).

Finally, among the configuration of households with resident children aged 6 to 14 years, noticeable differences are constrained within the participation equation. The negative effect of the family budget is amplified for EU and non-EU women in the third income quartile and for EU women in the fourth income quartile. The results show an additional 10-point decrease in the probability of being employed, compared to Swiss women.

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Figure 2: Interaction of household income and country of birth by family composition^(d)

Source ESPA 2010-2014

(d) Predictive margins for employment and number of hours worked, controlled for women's socio-demographic characteristics, partners characteristics and contextual factors.