Unions and the Immigrant-Native-born Wage Gap in Canada

Abstract

Using microdata from the Labour Force Survey from November 2017 to October 2018, this paper investigates the differences in unionization rates between native-born, old immigrants, and new immigrants in Canada. The research is also interested in investigating union effects on hourly wage gaps between native-born and immigrants. The results show that native-born employees have higher unionization rates than old immigrants and new immigrants and that old immigrants are more likely to be unionized than new immigrants. The results for wages illustrates that hourly wage gaps between immigrants and the native-born become larger if they both join a union. However, if immigrants join a union but the native-born do not, the wage gap decreases. Finally, other human capital characteristics like education level, province, and establishment size have similar effects on unionization rates and hourly wages for native-born, old immigrants, and new immigrants.