Labor market policies play a critical role in shaping the economic opportunities and longterm prospects of individuals, particularly those facing structural barriers to integration and stable employment. This research explores how different labor market interventions can significantly influence the economic outcomes of marginalized groups. By focusing on two key policy domains, employment protection reforms and citizenship policies, this project seeks to provide a better understanding of how institutional changes affect labor market integration and career development for vulnerable populations.

The first pillar of this project focuses on Spain’s 2021 labor market reform, whose main consequence was a significantly enhanced employment protections legislation (EPL) for fixed-term contracts. By tightening the regulations around temporary contracts and incentivizing more stable, permanent employment, the reform sought to address longstanding issues of job insecurity and was aimed at reducing the prevalence of temporary contracts, particularly among young workers, a group historically affected by precarious employment conditions. However, theoretically, the effect of increasing employment protections for fixed-term contracts on young people’s careers is not straightforward. Strengthening these protections could inadvertently reduce their employment opportunities, particularly in Spain, where youth unemployment was already among the highest in Europe before the reform (27.2% in 2021 for ages 15-29) and the NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) rate stood at 24.7%. This first research aims to causally assess the short-run reform’s impact on early-career workers across multiple dimensions, including wages, employment rates, and contract types. 

The second pillar will investigate the effect of naturalization laws on the labor outcomes of second-generation immigrants, examining how naturalization laws influence access to employment, wage levels, and career advancement. The central hypothesis is that obtaining citizenship in a host country accelerates immigrants’ integration by motivating them to invest more in their future, shifting their aspirations, or reducing discriminatory barriers from natives. Restrictive policies, such as prolonged residency requirements, may therefore hinder integration by discouraging immigrants from making long-term investments in the host country. Over the past few decades, many European countries have introduced reforms to their citizenship policies, but there remains much to uncover regarding the mechanisms through which citizenship fosters integration, who benefits the most, and which policies are most effective. In the second chapter of this project I will try to discern how naturalization law directly targeted at second-generation immigrants affect their economic integration.