Who Benefits from Migrant and Female Labor? Connecting Wages to Demographic Changes in French Workplaces1

Abstract

We ask how an increasing share of women or migrants in the workplace affects wages for different groups depending on market‐based or relational outcomes. Using data on nearly every French employee and workplace, we propose four theoretically informed outcomes. We do not find an increase in the share of women or migrants provokes a wage backlash but that these groups instead have some “power in numbers.” Yet, most importantly, our results show demographic changes are conditioned by class position through a surplus appropriation mechanism. The share of women and the share of migrants in the professional and managerial class raise wages within this class especially for men and migrants in this class, respectively. We also find the entry of migrant workers puts downward pressure on worker wages—both natives and migrants. We offer an interpretation of these results based on the redistribution of labor costs when hiring employees like women and migrants who earn less on average.