The Changing Job Instability of UK Immigrants at the Intersection of Gender and Ethnicity, 1992–2023

Today, the duration of jobs held by men is substantially lower than prior to the 1990s. An increase in women's job tenure has masked that decrease in job stability for men, a pattern called “masked instability.” In this paper, we contribute to the masked instability literature by focusing on differences in job stability trends between immigrant and non-immigrant workers. We are specifically interested in differences stemming from employment dynamics among immigrant mothers and fathers, which has received limited attention in research on job instability. We use data from the United Kingdom's Labour Force Survey (LFS) from 1992 to 2023 to conduct a disaggregated analysis comparing the evolution of the job tenure of immigrant and non-immigrant mothers and fathers from various ethnic groups. We find that white non-immigrant mothers experienced the highest increase in job tenure, converging with the job tenure level of white non-immigrant fathers. Meanwhile, immigrant mothers from most ethnic groups did not experience the same increase in job tenure, leading to persisting gaps in job stability relative to white non-immigrant mothers and fathers. This is especially true for Black immigrant mothers. Finally, we find a decrease in job tenure duration among immigrant fathers of all ethnicities and white non-immigrant fathers. Our findings illustrate how the rise of flexible employment practices has impacted the job stability of racialized immigrant mothers and fathers in the UK and highlight the importance of studying career instability for immigration scholars.