Place of Birth, Location of Study and Immigrants' Relative Earnings

Abstract

Using 2006 Canadian Census data, this paper focuses on the economic performance of highly educated immigrants who were born in less developed countries and who studied inside or outside Canada. There are two outcomes that are studied for immigrants and Canadian-born: access to a full-time full-year job and earnings. This study finds that immigrants from all places of birth have a lower probability of having a full-time full-year job than Canadian-born individuals and that, for most places of birth; immigrants who studied outside Canada have a lower probability of having such a job than immigrants who studied in Canada. People with more years of schooling earn more for both immigrants and Canadian-born, but immigrants earn less than the Canadian-born workers with the same educational attainment. Among the immigrants, some completed their higher education in their own country while others studied in Canada. The results show that immigrants who studied in Canada tend to earn more than immigrants who studied outside Canada.