Essays in the Economics of Immigration and Language in Canada

Abstract

This thesis consists of three essays on the economics of immigration and language in Canada. The first essay, entitled “Linguistic Distance, Languages of Work and Wages of Immigrants in Montreal”, explores whether the distance between an immigrant’s mother tongue and a Canadian official language (English or French), evaluated with the use of the Levenshtein distance measure, has an impact on his/her economic integration into the labour market. Using microdata from the master files of the 2001 and 2006 Canadian censuses and from the 2011 National Household Survey, I investigate the relationship between linguistic distance and the intensity of use of English and French at work in the Montreal metropolitan area. That region is characterized by the presence of sizeable French and English-speaking communities, as well as by a large number of immigrants from a wide variety of linguistic backgrounds. Those elements of linguistic diversity interact in the context of English being the international lingua franca. I find that linguistic distances between immigrants’ mother tongues and English and French have an important impact on the relative intensities of use of the two Canadian official languages at work. I further investigate the role of the languages used at work on the earnings of immigrants by estimating earnings functions. I find that the use of both French and English are remunerated in the labour market, but that using English at work has a larger impact on earnings. The second essay, entitled “Labour Shortages and Immigration: The Case of the Agriculture Sector”, examines the role played by immigration in filling labour shortages in rural areas. Reliable access to labour is an ongoing key concern for many employers, in particular for those in regions. As an attempt to help mitigate the effects of labour shortage on the labour market, immigration has always been deployed as a key strategy, but most immigrants are concentrated in large cities. Immigration programs that try to modify the regional distribution of immigrants by attracting and retaining immigrants to rural areas all have in common that they try to fill labour shortages in those regions. A sector that represents an interesting case in point, in the dual context of attracting and retaining immigrants in rural areas and in filling a labour shortage, is the agriculture sector. I use a novel longitudinal micro-database for the years 2001-2013 from the Canadian Employer-Employee Dynamic Database (CEEDD) to identify the factors that have an impact on the recruitment and retention of Canadian and immigrant workers in this sector. In particular, in response to the efforts to explore permanent residence pathways, whether or not former temporary foreign workers (TFW) with Canadian experience are most likely to stay in the sector after entering remains a key question for policy makers that I investigate. The third essay, “Immigrant Assimilation in a Multicultural and Multilingual Context”, expands on the work of the first essay by looking at languages used at home. I investigate whether linguistic distance between an immigrant’s mother tongue and a Canadian official language (English or French) has an impact on his/her assimilation to the host country’s official languages. Using microdata drawn from the master files of the 2001, 2006 and 2016 Canadian censuses and the 2011 National Household Survey, I investigate the relationship between linguistic distance and the intensity of use of English and French at home for immigrants in the Montreal metropolitan area. I find that linguistic distances between immigrants’ mother tongues and English and French have an important impact on the relative intensities of use of the two Canadian official languages at home. I further investigate the role of spousal characteristics and other variables on the assimilation of immigrants. The results suggest that the home environment is an important factor contributing to the linguistic assimilation of immigrants. Individuals exposed to an official language at home with their spouse have significantly higher rates of assimilation.