The influence of the documentation status on first employment outcomes in the host country: the case of Albanian returnees

Despite its increasing relevance, not enough empirical attention has been paid to the irregular component of international migration, especially in Europe, where there is a lack of quantitative data sampling this migrant population subgroup. The few studies assessing the economic impact of the irregular status are mainly focused on the analysis of wage disparities in the USA. The main purpose of this article is to analyse the effect of the documentation status on migrants’ position in the labour market while living in the host country. We contribute to the literature on this subject using return migrants in Albania as a new case study, drawing data from the nationally representative survey on Return Migration and Reintegration in Albania of 2013. Results from multivariate analyses suggest that the documentation status is an important source of variation among migrants. We find that undocumented migrants are significantly less likely to be employed or self-employed in the host country than migrants with legal documents, but only after controlling for the characteristics of their migratory projects. Gradients in the relationship between employment and documentation status arise, reflecting profound divergences across gender and migratory processes of Albanians, but, systematically, undocumented migrants are those showing the lowest likelihoods of employment.