Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/282914 
Year of Publication: 
2022
Series/Report no.: 
IFS Report No. R231
Publisher: 
Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), London
Abstract: 
This chapter investigates the relationship between immigration and inequality in the UK over the past 40 years. This is a period when the share of foreign-born in the UK population increased from 5.3% in 1975 to 13.4% in 2015. We evaluate the impact immigration had on wage inequality in the UK through two channels: the first is the effect on the earnings distribution of natives and the second is the effect on the composition of the wage-earning population. We find both effects to be very small. We decompose wage inequality into inequality within the immigrant and native groups and inequality between the two groups. We find inequality among immigrants to be consistently higher than inequality among natives. We also examine the impact of immigration on the fiscal budget, and the potentially unequal impact of the ensuing tax implications on natives. In the UK, where immigrants are net fiscal contributors, this is not a factor that aggravates economic inequality. Even though the impact of immigration is found to be small, the way it is perceived across different population groups in the UK varies; a fact mostly attributed to racial and cultural concerns rather than perceived economic competition.
Subjects: 
Poverty, inequality and social mobility
Inequality
Geographical mobility
Social mobility
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
ISBN: 
978-1-80103-109-7
Document Type: 
Research Report

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