Três ensaios em economia do trabalho e migração

Abstract

The economic and social crisis in Venezuela has displaced more than 5 million people to other countries, making it one of the largest displacement crises in the world. Among the countries that have received the most Venezuelan forced migrants is Brazil. This thesis aimed to conduct an analysis of the Venezuelan influx into Brazil, focusing on aspects related to the labor market. To do this, it was divided into three essays. In the first essay, we present the general characteristics of the influx into Brazilian territory, with a focus on the integration of Venezuelans into the labor market. We found that firms with previous experience in hiring migrants and that are located close to networks accessing the country of origin were more likely to hire Venezuelans. Regarding labor market integration, our results showed that Venezuelans entered the labor market through less productive firms and in worse job positions. In the second essay, we analyzed differences in initial conditions and future trajectories in the labor market between migrants and local workers. In this sense, our results point to a clear disadvantage for forced migrants, both in terms of initial conditions and future performance in the labor market. Finally, in the third essay, we focused on the effects of migration on the labor market outcomes of natives. We observed that local workers experienced a positive wage variation due to the influx, and such wage increases were linked to the fact that local workers, on average, remained in the formal labor market even after the supply shock. However, they were displaced to occupations with higher wages. With this thesis, we seek to contribute to the literature on recent forced migration movements and their impacts on the labor market. First, we show how the use of a wide set of administrative data can help characterize migratory movements. Second, we aim to bring to the debate how the outcomes for refugees may be linked to the market power exerted by firms. A third contribution we propose here is an empirical approach that accounts for the heterogeneous effect of firms in labor market performance analyses, a fact not commonly found in the literature. A fourth aspect we believe contributes is the analysis of labor market adjustment mechanisms in response to a migratory supply shock.