Much has been written about the widening gap in earnings and low-income rates between recent immigrants to Canada and their Canadian-born counterparts. However, the challenges associated with the integration of immigrants often extend beyond the first generation.
This study, published today in the October 2007 edition of Perspectives on Labour and Income, focuses on second-generation Canadians aged 17 to 29—young men and women born in Canada to two immigrant parents between 1967 and 1982.
Using data from the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics, the study compares, over a six-year period (either 1996 to 2001 or 1999 to 2004), the earnings of these second-generation Canadians who have a strong labour force attachment to those of their peers with Canadian-born parents. It also compares the two groups' family characteristics, educational attainment and geographical distribution, and the extent to which these factors may lead to differences in earnings.
Taking education levels into account, the study found that young women with two immigrant parents had significantly higher hourly and annual earnings than young women with Canadian-born parents during the entire six-year period.
Among young men, on the other hand, there was little evidence of such a second-generation earnings advantage. In fact, everything else being equal, some visible minority men with two immigrant parents appeared to have a significant disadvantage in earnings compared to their peers with Canadian-born parents.
In the case of women, roughly half of their advantage in hourly earnings was due to geographic distribution. Three-quarters of young Canadians with two immigrant parents were concentrated in Ontario and British Columbia, and more than three-quarters lived in large urban centres. In contrast, half of their counterparts with Canadian-born parents lived in less economically prosperous regions, such as Atlantic Canada, Quebec, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. About 60% lived in smaller cities, small towns and rural areas.
A large part of the annual earnings advantage among young women with two immigrant parents was also because they were less likely to have been married or had children.
By the end of the six-year period when they had reached the ages of 22 to 34, less than half of women with two immigrant parents had been married. Only a third had given birth to, adopted, or raised children. In contrast, over 60% of those with Canadian-born parents had been married, and close to half had had children.
The situation was quite different for young second-generation men. The study found little evidence of an advantage in hourly or annual earnings relative to their third- and higher-generation male counterparts.
-Economic integration of immigrants' children
Methodology-Multilevel growth models;
To investigate differences in hourly and annual earnings among the different groups, a sub-sample of non-students with paid employment in year 1 was selected from the original sample of 17- to 29-year-olds. This sub-sample had high labour force attachment, with an average of around five years of paid employment over the six-year period and little variability between groups. (Multilevel growth models - Table)
Multilevel models are ideal for investigating continuous outcomes (like earnings) whose values change systematically over time.
Why multilevel? At the first level are individual growth trajectories—in the simplest case of linear growth, each person's trajectory can be described with an intercept (starting point) and a slope (linear rate of change). At the second level are average trajectories, with individual and group deviations from the average. This allows differences in intercept and slope to be examined....
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