The project has made significant progress towards achieving its objectives and milestones, despite facing some challenges and delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the initial phase, I collaborated closely with my supervisor to refine the theoretical framework and research methodology. In addition, I participated in relevant training courses that helped me enhance my career and time management skills, and improved my ability to communicate research results effectively.
During my secondment, I worked on conceptualizing how to apply the "product space" method, which is typically used in international economics, to my research based on the "time-use space" in work-packages 2. The time-use space is a useful tool for analysing the relationships between time-use activities that are essential for integration, such as education, work, or socialization. It also enables me to identify differences between immigrants and natives, as well as sub-groups of immigrants based on gender and time residing at the destination. With the help of co-authors, I published an article that examines how immigrants spend their time differently in informal education compared to natives and how this contributes to their integration. Throughout my research, I received valuable feedback from scholars who attended my presentations at three seminars and six conferences/workshops, which aided in advancing my work.
In work-packages 3-5, which are currently ongoing, I used econometric methods to analyze the differences in time-use patterns between immigrants and natives. Specifically, I employed a double-hurdle model to examine both the differences in the probability of participation in each activity by sub-group (extensive margin) and the differences in the amount of time allocated to each activity by sub-group (intensive margin). Through this analysis, I found substantial differences between immigrants and natives in their time-use patterns across a very granular set of activities. However, these differences tend to decrease over time for both first-generation and second-generation immigrants, particularly in the case of integrating activities.
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on vulnerable populations such as immigrants and ethnic minorities, who have faced greater exposure to job loss and health risks. To investigate these disparities, my co-author and I leveraged new data on how individuals in the U.S. spent their time during the pandemic. Specifically, we examined differences in participation in work from home and the amount of time spent on this activity among ethnic minorities (and immigrants). Our findings revealed that ethnic minorities experienced higher job losses, as they were less likely to be able to work from home during the pandemic. These results, which were recently accepted for publication in the International Journal of Manpower, have implications beyond the U.S. and could be partially generalized to other developed European countries.
In addition to my other work, I completed the theoretical framework and developed general metrics for analysing the relationships between activities. I also addressed several issues related to the varying probabilities of activity occurrence within a single day of observation. However, the calculation of relatedness metrics at the sub-activity level for sub-groups of individuals (immigrants and natives) based on gender, time since migration, and second generation status is still ongoing. Unfortunately, progress has been delayed due to difficulties in obtaining the necessary data.
