Abstract
Organizational research has revealed considerable variation in immigrant–native pay inequalities across workplace contexts, but less is known about how broader labor market institutions intersect in local dynamics of wage setting between employees of immigrant and native backgrounds. We argue that increased workplace concentrations of union members and employees in licensed occupations constrain organizational opportunity structures for discrimination and reduce immigrant–native wage gaps. We analyze longitudinal linked employer–employee administrative data for the Norwegian labor market and find that immigrants and their descendants experience smaller wage gaps relative to native Norwegian coworkers in highly unionized and, to a lesser extent, licensed workplaces. The advantages of high workplace unionization and occupational licensure are larger for immigrant-origin employees who are union members or working in licensed occupations. Our findings support the claim that institutional regulation in the workplace reduces the organizational scope for unequal pay based on immigrant status.