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The different life paths of the generation following immigration have become a matter of public discussion and scholarly research in the past decades in many migrant-receiving countries. These differences would be key points for the immigration decision made by first-generation immigrants. This paper adopts a new perspective to study the differences in task supplies and economic status between natives and two generations of immigrants to see their different life paths. This paper estimates differences in task supply and earnings between natives and immigrants in 1970 and 2015, which are the beginning and end of the fifth (and current) wave of immigration to Canada. Furthermore, using a three-fold Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition, I link the average weekly wage of workers to their task productivity, and try to find the effects of the returns to tasks as well as different task supplies on the average wage gap between natives and immigrants. Finally, I use ordered probit and logit models to demonstrate and measure the significant effects of immigrant status on an employee's labour market segment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies performance differences between immigrants working in the regular Canadian labour market and those in the ethnic enclave sector of the economy. First, by studying the effects of education and race on the weekly wage earnings, I find that the returns to education are greater and being a visible minority carries less of a wage penalty for immigrants working in the regular sector compared with those in the enclave sector. Moreover, taking the AMEs (Average Marginal Effects) studies, I document different effects of education and race on both earnings and job segment for these two types of immigrants and propose an explanation. After this, I compute task supply and wage gaps between different types of immigrants in three census years to show differences in assimilation by immigration cohort. Finally, I use regression models to study immigrants' task supply and weekly wages so that we can have a fuller view of the differences in performance between immigrants working in the regular and enclave sectors. I also use these models to analyse differences between immigrants and natives in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada’s old age security (OAS), a flat-benefit public pension, is internationally lauded as an accessible and effective safety net for seniors. This paper explores discrepancies in OAS uptake using Canadian Census data from 1996 to 2011. Our findings demonstrate disparities in OAS uptake based on immigration status, language proficiency, and visible minority status, disputing claims of “universal” OAS provision. Multivariate analyses confirm a strong “immigrant effect,” with being in Canada for 20 years or less leading to lower rates of OAS utilization. They also confirm that those not proficient in Canada’s official languages are less likely to receive OAS benefits. However, the influence of racialized minority status is found to be spurious; after controlling for immigration status and official language proficiency, many racialized minority senior groups have higher odds of receiving OAS than White Canadians. We conclude with a brief discussion of the tradeoffs involved in considering a potential removal of OAS eligibility barriers for immigrants in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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Copyright of Canadian Journal of Economics is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The spatial configurations of changes in the distribution of incomes within Canada's eight largest metropolitan areas are examined using a new approach based on dynamic local indicators of spatial association. These changes are characterized by increasing spatial polarization (or divergence) between higher- and lower-income neighbourhoods in Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa-Gatineau, Calgary and Vancouver. Though patterns of spatial polarization are less pronounced in Edmonton, Winnipeg and Quebec City, several lower-income neighbourhoods in these cities nevertheless appear to be losing ground relative to other neighbourhoods. These neighbourhoods are typically characterized by higher levels of precarious employment and higher shares of visible minority and recent immigrant populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The discourse on immigrants' economic integration often assumes that the human capital of immigrants determines the outcome of successful integration, measured as income parity with the native-born population. This paper decomposes the employment earnings of immigrants and native-born Canadians in Canada to see how much of income disparity may be attributed to human capital factors and how much to other factors. The findings indicate that immigrants have brought high levels of human capital to Canada, often surpassing those of the native-born, but immigrants under-perform in earnings because of other unexplained returns. The findings suggest that there are limits in using immigrant selection policy to increase the human capital content of immigrants as a means to achieve successful economic integration, and that other policies that influence how immigrants, especially those of minority origin, are treated in the labour market should be considered as a means to bridge income disparity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on confidential data from some Censuses and examines the factors of inequality of earnings and of poverty relative to Canadian immigrants during the period of 1990 to 2006. The results of our analysis show that immigrants from developing countries have been the most harmed by economic fluctuations. They have less income than either native-born Canadians or immigrants from other countries; in addition, the return on their human capital has diminished between 1991 and 2006. The importance of migratory flux from developing countries has increased the social heterogeneity of the immigrant population, and has aggravated the inequality of income within the group of immigrants from the South as well as between them and other immigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considerable media attention had been directed towards the flow of highly talented Canadians to the United States in the 1990s. There are firm theoretical reasons, however, to believe that qualitative differences in migration began as early as the 1980s, owing to the widening distribution of earnings and the related increased returns to education in the United States relative to Canada, both of which could result in qualitative improvements in the migration flow. US immigration policy remained essentially unchanged during the 1980s, but changed markedly in the 1990s owing to the implementation of the Canada–US Free Trade Agreement (CUFTA) and its successor, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). We use a flexible empirical approach to document these changes in immigrant quality using 1980, 1990 and 2000 US census data. Our results suggest that improvements in Canadian immigrant quality occurred during the 1990s, but these also happened earlier, casting doubt on the hypothesis of improving Canadian immigrant quality in the 1990s. Quantile regressions also show that improvement in the entry quality of immigrants was not limited to the upper tail of the earnings distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Objective. To improve on the existing research on earnings differentials between visible minority immigrants and the native-born, and on the role of discrimination in producing that difference. To do this we introduce into the analysis: (1) access to training and (2) training effects on earnings growth. Method. Using a panel data set containing information on training we test cross-sectional models of access to training, cross-sectional models of wage determination, and panel models of wage growth. Results. Visible minority immigrants are disadvantaged in both access to training and earnings; education reduces the disadvantage; and they do better than the other two groups in wage growth. Conclusions. Some results are consistent with a discrimination interpretation but, considered together, the complete sets of results are difficult to reconcile with any relatively straightforward discrimination account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the poverty of ethnic and immigrant groups in Canada. Factors blamed for the mixed results of research on immigrants' socio-economic performances; Failure of indices based on average income to reveal the status of low-income immigrants; Comparison based on their ethnic origin, period of immigration, age at immigration and geographical location.