This study addresses two related questions. First, do immigrants in Ireland face less favourable prospects than the native-born population in the labour market? Here the report examines objective measures of labour market outcomes to assess whether there are disparities between immigrant and native Irish participants in the labour market. The report focuses in particular on access to employment, on the risk of unemployment, on the quality of occupations attained and on earnings from work.
Second, do immigrants report higher levels of discrimination in the labour market? This focuses on people’s subjective interpretations of their involvement in the labour market and draws on a dedicated series of questions about experiences of discrimination when looking for work and when in the workplace.
The study also examines differences in both objective outcomes and subjective experiences for different groups of immigrants, looking in particular at variations between different national-ethnic groups. An Equality Module of the QNHS was also collected in 2004, which allows comparison of the experiences of immigrants in the Irish labour market during the boom with those during the recession.
