Publication

This working paper examines whether migration policy, in addition to managing a country’s population size, may serve as a suitable tool to influence immigrants’ labor market outcomes. Through an analysis of the impact of migration policy reform in Australia in the 1990s, the author finds such changes had 1) no detectable impact on the employment rate, wages, education–occupation mismatch, occupational downgrading and self-reported use of skills for male immigrants, who account for about 75 per cent of the sample; and 2) a modest short-term positive impact on female immigrants. These results support the view that migration policy is an ineffective policy tool to influence migrants’ labor market outcomes.