The emergence of a transitional labour market offers new opportunities to
workers, but at the same time bears the risk of (new) inequalities. This paper
deals with unequal chances on the transitional labour market in the
Netherlands, in particular for workers from the four largest immigrant groups:
Turks, Moroccans, Surinamese and Antilleans. The data used are from the SPVA,
the survey `Social Position and Use of Public Utilities by Migrants' for the
years 1998 and 2002. These are based on stock sampling. Since for some
individuals labour market transitions occur at a very low rate, these
individuals may stay in their current state till they reach the retirement age
of 65. We estimate hazard rate models that account for both the stock-sampling
and the possible maximum duration for the transitions from unemployment,
household care and disability to employment. Then we decompose the difference
in expected duration between the immigrant groups and the Dutch into the
contribution of differences in observable characteristics, coefficient
estimates and baseline hazard parameters. The main results of the analyses are
that unequal chances exist, but to a different degree for the various groups
and with variations per transition type