Foreign–native wage gap and tasks: Evidence from the Japanese labor market

This paper provides novel empirical evidence on the foreign–native wage gap in the Japanese labor market, examining the role of tasks. By leveraging government micro-level data and the Japanese version of O*NET, we construct task scores à la Acemoglu and Autor (2011) at a detailed occupational level. We then estimate the foreign–native wage gap in the spirit of Mincer (1974). Unconditionally, foreign workers earn 27% less than native workers; 82% of this gap is explained by observable characteristics. Tasks account for roughly one-third of the remaining unexplained gap, suggesting that foreign workers are assigned to lower-wage tasks, typically manual and routine tasks.