Population growth, immigration and labour market dynamics

This paper provides a synthesis of population flows and labor market dynamics across immigrant and native-born populations. Using data for the United Kingdom, we document that population flows are large, and cyclical, driven first by maturation of baby boom cohorts in the 1980s, and latterly by immigration in the 2000s. New measures of labor market flows by migrant status uncover both the flow origins of disparities in the levels and cyclicalities of immigrant and native labor market outcomes, as well as their more recent convergence. A novel dynamic accounting framework reveals that population flows have played a nontrivial role in the volatility of labor markets amongboth the UK-born and, especially, immigrants.