except in some specific cases this increase in unskilled and semiskilled labour supply does not appear to have displaced domestic workers instead immigrants appear to have generally replaced domestic workers in jobs left vacant due to a decline of the local labour force higher education of local workers and expectations of finding employment in higher paid jobs migration may therefore have contributed to the observed rise in the skilledunskilled wage ratio by causing a stagnation in the unskilled labour wages in countries of destination as observed for instance in italy in contrast inequality rose in the majority of the developed developing and transitional countries between and