Canadian Immigration: Economic Evidence for a Dynamic Policy Environment (review)

This book has emerged out of the Canadian Metropolis Project, a network of academic scholars and policy analysts. The editorial team reflects this partnership, with three academics and a senior figure in Citizenship and Immigration Canada (Elizabeth Ruddick), who was at the time of publication the Director General of Research and Evaluation for that ministry.

The editors outline their key concern at the outset of the introductory chapter: how should we understand the apparent decline in the economic fortunes of newcomers to Canada? It is worth noting that this outcome flies against much of the Canadian policy environment. Canada has invested significantly in selecting immigrants with the potential to adapt to the Canadian labour market, and has also advanced multiculturalism, employment equity, and various anti-discrimination measures (such as the ongoing National Action Plan against Racism). Furthermore, Canadians are constantly warned that we are on the precipice of demographic disaster, given prolonged low fertility and the looming retirement of the baby boom generation—meaning that there are relatively few young Canadians and a rapidly growing elderly population. If immigration might be the solution to this pressing concern, and if policy has created a pathway for immigrants to succeed, why do we see the counterintuitive result that newcomers struggle to find a place in the labour market and that this is especially the case for those arriving with high levels of educational attainment? This question has generated what could almost be described as a research industry in Canada, and many of the captains of that industry have contributed to this volume.

The substantive chapters begin with Li Xue’s analysis of the labour market integration of newcomers, based on the four-year Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada, which shows highly variegated outcomes, depending on language competence, region of origin, region of settlement, and other factors. Barry Chiswick and Paul Miller compare the returns to education for immigrants in Canada and the US, and find that the income gap for immigrants, relative to education, is higher in the latter country. In a technically sophisticated and particularly lucid chapter, David Green and Christopher Worswick show, among other things, that Canadian employers discount foreign experience effectively to zero: “By the mid-1990s, an immigrant just out of school and another immigrant with the same level of schooling but 20 years of experience outside Canada would expect to have the same average entry earnings in Canada.” (107) This finding is especially significant given the importance accorded to foreign labour market experience in Canada’s immigrant selection system for skilled workers, and we can only wonder at the wisdom of that criterion.

Ted McDonald and Christopher Worswick examine the earnings of young Canadian-born men and women, in relation to newcomers, since both groups are new entrants to the labour market. Some of the difficulties experienced by immigrants are shared by young Canadians, an important contribution to our understanding of the economic incorporation of immigrants. They also show that Canadian-born members of Visible Minority groups are faring reasonably well. Herbert Schuetze adds a degree of nuance to the larger picture by examining data on immigrant self-employment, though his analysis is based on dated information that cannot answer the critical question whether immigrants turn to self-employment out of choice or necessity.

Arthur Sweetman and Casey Warman contrast the labour market experience of the spouses of skilled workers who were admitted to Canada based on their human capital, through the points system, with those of family-class immigrants. Their results are complex and point toward a lower rate of return in the labour market for both spouses and family-class immigrants relative to their human capital, when compared with points-assessed skilled workers. There is no simple explanation for this outcome. In another chapter, Warman uses census information to show that Temporary Foreign Workers actually appear to be better compensated for the skills and experience...