Labor market assimilation of South-South forced migrants : evidence from a small open Latin American economy

We study the negative wage premium Venezuelan immigrants face in the Peruvian labor market in 2018, by merging two national household surveys. Consistent with an imperfect transfer of skills, we find that Venezuelans face, on average, a 40% discount on their hourly wage compared to Peruvians. Interestingly, there is heterogeneity in wage premiums across education levels and broad groups of fields of study. The higher the education level, the larger the negative wage premium. Venezuelans with low levels of education could earn a higher hourly wage than Peruvian. Further, Immigrants with careers related to Economics, Administration and Commerce face the least wage discount. Finally, we find that foreign work experience has negligible value in the host country