THE EARNING DIFFERENCIAL (original) (raw)
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Education in Canada's federal system for economic (skilled) class immigrant selection is treated as if it is homogeneous and only differs in quantity. In contrast, some provinces differentiate based on postsecondary field of study. This study finds large economic implications of field of study. It explores the issue for each sex, and for two subgroups of immigrants depending upon whether their education was obtained in Canada or elsewhere. Overall, large differences in the distribution of fields of study are observed between both immigrant groups and the Canadian born. For all groups there are also substantial differences in earnings and social benefit receipt across fields. On average, individuals in high earnings fields, but at lower levels of education, have greater earnings than those with higher levels of education in low earnings fields. This suggests that viewing education strictly as a quantity, and ranking a college diploma as worth fewer points than a university degree in the immigration points system, ignores important and systematic heterogeneity across fields.
An Analysis of the Earnings of Canadian Immigrants
1989
This paper reports estimates of simple wage equations fit to cross-sectional and pseudo-longitudinal data for Canadian immigrants in the 1971 and 1981 Canadian censuses. The estimates are used to assess (1) the usefulness of crosssectional analyses for measuring the pace of immigrant earnings growth, (2) the labor market implications of admissions policies that place different weights on the work skills possessed by prospective entrants, and (3) the relative impact of selective outmigration and job-matching on the shape of immigrant earnings distributions as duration of stay increases. The estimates provide evidence of a small to moderate assimilation effect that suggests that immigrants make up for relatively low entry wages, although the wage catch-up is not complete until 13 to 22 years after entry into Canada. These results are revealed clearly in both the pseudo-longitudinal and the cross-sectional analyses. The estimates also provide evidence that the unobserved quality of immigrants' labor market skills declined following changes in Canada's immigration policies in 1974 that led to a sharp increase in the proportion of immigrants admitted on the basis of family ties. Finally, since there is no evidence that the variance of immigrant earnings increases with their duration of stay in Canada, and since there are no differential immigrant-native changes in higher-order moments of the earnings distribution as duration of stay increases, the results are inconclusive with respect to the importance of selective outmigration and job matching in the evolution of immigrant earnings distributions over time.
8. The Colour Of Money Redux: Immigrant/Ethnic Earnings Disparity In Canada, 1991–2006
The Housing and Economic Experiences of Immigrants in U.S. and Canadian Cities, 2015
In this paper, we investigate how visible minority and immigrant earnings gaps in Canada evolved over 1991 to 2006. Immigrant disparity changes with the duration of residence in Canada, so we evaluate disparity at 5 years in Canada, that is for relatively recent immigrants. We find that, overall, visible minority-and immigrant-based earnings disparity increased substantially over the 15 year period. This pattern is observed broadly for both men and women, in Canada as a whole and in each of its three largest CMAs, for most white and visible minority immigrant groups, and for most Canadian-born visible minority ethnic groups. The decline in relative earnings is large: it is on the order of 20 percentage points for both white and visible minority immigrants and on the order of 10 percentage points for Canadian-born visible minority workers.
Foreign human capital and the earnings gap between immigrants and Canadian-born workers
Labour Economics, 2016
• More than half of young adult immigrants obtain their highest degree in Canada. • Imputation method underestimates Canadian education for young adult immigrants. • Country of highest education degree is the most important for immigrant earnings. • Actual location of study reduces wage penalties associated with countries of birth. • Portability of foreign human capital is heterogeneous across fields of study.
2013
Using data from the 2006 Canadian Census, this study focuses on differences in earnings between the first-generation, second-generation and third generation immigrants (third generation immigrants are Canadian-born individuals whose parents are both Canadian-born). Seven age groups of immigrants and two subgroups of second-generation immigrants are introduced: the first group of second-generation immigrants includes individuals with one foreign-born parent and the second one includes those with two foreign-born parents. The paper also defines immigrants who arrived in Canada at the age of 9 or younger as "young immigrants". For both males and females, the same models were estimated for the first-generation and second-generation immigrants. As in previous studies, the results confirm that the young immigrants have earnings advantages compared to those who arrived as adults. Second-generation immigrants do better than their counterparts who were born to Canadian parents
Will they ever converge? Earnings of immigrant and Canadian-born
2000
Using Census data covering the 1980-2000 period, we examine what outcomes would be necessary for today's recent immigrant cohorts to achieve earnings parity with Canadian-born workers. Our results show that today's recent immigrants would have to experience a drastic steepening of their relative age-earnings profile in the near future for their earnings to converge with their Canadianborn counterparts. The reason is simple: the greater relative earnings growth experienced by recent immigrant cohorts has only partially offset the drastic deterioration in their relative earnings at entry.
Policy Brief No. 9 - A Canada-US Comparison of the Wage Gap for Highly Educated Immigrants
2012
This policy brief focuses on changes in the wages of university educated new immigrants over the 1980-2005 period in Canada and the United States. Generally speaking, wage outcomes for this group were superior in the U.S. Wages of university educated new immigrants relative to domestic born university graduates declined in Canada over that period but rose in the United States. Also, the university wage premium — the difference in the wages of the university and high school educated — for new immigrants was similar in both countries in 1980, but rose over the next two decades in the United States while staying fairly static in Canada. The vast majority of this difference occurred in the 1990s, and coincided with a larger influx of immigrants to Canada than the United States, relative to the 1980s levels, and more of them arriving with degrees. The paper discusses a number of possible reasons for this divergence in immigrant wages between the two countries.
Education, credentials, and immigrant earnings
Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, 2008
The extent to which the education and skills of immigrants are utilized and rewarded in the labour market is a major policy issue. This study examines how the human capital of immigrants is rewarded in the Canadian labour market. In order to focus on immigrants' credentials, we distinguish between two dimensions of educational attainment: years of completed schooling and degrees, diplomas or certificates received. Doing so allows us to estimate "sheepskin" effects-the gain in earnings associated with receipt of a degree or diploma, controlling for years of schooling. Using data from the 1981, 1986, 1991 and 1996 Censuses, we study the evolution of the returns to the human capital of immigrant and native-born workers in Canada. Like earlier studies, we find that the work experience of immigrants in their country of origin is valued much less than the experience of comparable native-born workers. A similar result holds for the years of schooling of immigrants. However, the estimated sheepskin effects for immigrants are generally higher than those of native-born Canadians. Thus, the frequently heard claim that the credentials of immigrants are not recognized needs to be treated with some caution. For immigrants the increase in earnings associated with completing an educational program is higher than that of a comparable native born worker. JEL codes: J15, I2 * An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Canadian Economics Association meetings and at the UBC Applied Microeconomics workshop. We are grateful to David Green, Christopher Worswick and Arthur Sweetman for valuable comments and suggestions and to the SSHRC for research support.
Exploring the relationship between educational credentials and the earnings of immigrants
Canadian Studies in Population, 2005
The study uses the 2002 Ethnic Diversity Survey (EDS) to examine the relationship between immigrants’ educational credentials and earnings. Three aspects of an individual’s credentials are considered: country of origin, level of education, and field of study. In addition, we examine the constraining effects of gender and visible minority status on the ability of immigrants to negotiate the value of their educational credentials in the Canadian labour market.
Trends in occupational and earnings attainments of women immigrants to Canada, 1971-1996
English This study examines the extent to which immigrant women arriving in Canadabetween the 1960s and the early 1990s were able to attain occupations andearnings equivalent to those of Canadian-born women using a data file createdby merging public-use microdata files from Censuses of Canada between 1971and 1996. We study both changes in country of birth effects on the earnings andoccupational status of women aged 25 to 29 immigrating prior to each of thefive census years and the experience of successive female immigrant cohorts asthey age to determine the extent to which the effects of birthplace onoccupational status and earnings change over their careers. In both cases we finda considerable advantage associated with being educated in Canada compared tobeing educated abroad. For those visible minority immigrants just beginningtheir careers in Canada, we could find no evidence that more recent cohorts havelower attainments than earlier cohorts, though this was true for some Europe...