IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cpp/issued/v29y2003i1p33-51.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Changing Income Inequality and Immigration in Canada, 1980­1995

Author

Listed:
  • Eric G. Moore
  • Michael A. Pacey

Abstract

While there is a general consensus that income inequality has increased in most developed countries over the last two decades, the analytical focus has been on the national scale. However, these increases in inequality have not been uniform across different segments of society, either in terms of social groups or geographic region. In particular, the high levels of immigration to metropolitan Canada have contributed to growing inequality. Using individual household income data from the 1981, 1986, 1991, and 1996 censuses, this paper identifies the role of immigration and its differential impact on metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas. The impacts became more prominent during the first half of the 1990s when immigration remained high yet the economy slowed. The evidence suggests that the overall impact of immigration is a relatively short-run phenomenon as recent immigrants take time to adjust to the labour market. If recent immigrants are excluded, inequality is still increasing, but at a slower rate, especially in the largest metropolitan areas.

Suggested Citation

  • Eric G. Moore & Michael A. Pacey, 2003. "Changing Income Inequality and Immigration in Canada, 1980­1995," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 29(1), pages 33-51, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpp:issued:v:29:y:2003:i:1:p:33-51
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0317-0861%28200303%2929%3A1%3C33%3ACIIAII%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Z
    Download Restriction: only available to JSTOR subscribers
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Deborah Reed, 2001. "Immigration and males’ earnings inequality in the regions of the United States," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 38(3), pages 363-373, August.
    2. Lars Osberg, 2000. "Long Run Trends in Economic Inequality in Five Countries - A Birth Cohort View," LIS Working papers 222, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    3. Eric G. Moore & Michael A. Pacey, 2001. "Changing Income Inequality and the Elderly in Canada 1991-1996: Provincial Metropolitan and Local Dimensions," Social and Economic Dimensions of an Aging Population Research Papers 63, McMaster University.
    4. Theil, Henri, 1979. "The measurement of inequality by components of income," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 2(2), pages 197-199.
    5. Michael G. Abbott & Charles M. Beach, 1993. "Immigrant Earnings Differentials and Birth-Year Effects for Men in Canada: Post-war-1972," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 26(3), pages 505-524, August.
    6. Angus S. Deaton & Christina Paxson, 2004. "Mortality, Income, and Income Inequality over Time in Britain and the United States," NBER Chapters, in: Perspectives on the Economics of Aging, pages 247-286, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Baker, Michael & Benjamin, Dwayne, 1994. "The Performance of Immigrants in the Canadian Labor Market," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 12(3), pages 369-405, July.
    8. Coulter, Fiona A E & Cowell, Frank A & Jenkins, Stephen P, 1992. "Differences in Needs and Assessment of Income Distributions," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(2), pages 77-124, April.
    9. Fiona MaCphail, 2000. "Are estimates of earnings inequality sensitive to measurement choices? A case study of Canada in the 1980s," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(7), pages 845-860.
    10. Levernier, William & Partridge, Mark D. & Rickman, Dan S., 1998. "Differences in Metropolitan and Nonmetropolitan U.S. Family Income Inequality: A Cross-County Comparison," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 272-290, September.
    11. Zyblock, Miles & Lin, Zhengxi & Zhengxi, Lin, 1997. "Trickling Down or Fizzling Out? Economic Performance, Transfers, Inequality and Low Income," Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series 1997110e, Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch.
    12. Atkinson, Anthony B., 1970. "On the measurement of inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 244-263, September.
    13. repec:pri:cheawb:deaton_paxson_mortality_ukus.pdf is not listed on IDEAS
    14. repec:pri:cheawb:deaton_paxson_mortality_ukus is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Wolfson, Michael & Murphy, Brian B, 1998. "New Views on Inequality Trends in Canada and the United States," Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series 1998124e, Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sébastien Breau & David L. Rigby, 2010. "International trade and wage inequality in Canada," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 10(1), pages 55-86, January.
    2. Simone Scarpa, 2015. "The impact of income inequality on economic residential segregation: The case of Malmö, 1991–2010," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 52(5), pages 906-922, April.
    3. Fang, Tony & Samnani, Al-Karim & Novicevic, Milorad M. & Bing, Mark N., 2013. "Liability-of-foreignness effects on job success of immigrant job seekers," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 98-109.
    4. Kristyn Frank, 2013. "Immigrant Employment Success in C anada: Examining the Rate of Obtaining a Job Match," International Migration Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(1), pages 76-105, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Green, Alan & MacKinnon, Mary, 2001. "The Slow Assimilation of British Immigrants in Canada: Evidence from Montreal and Toronto, 1901," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 315-338, July.
    2. Ferreira, Francisco H. G. & Peragine, Vito, 2015. "Equality of Opportunity: Theory and Evidence," IZA Discussion Papers 8994, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell & Bernard Van Praag, 2003. "Income Satisfaction Inequality and its Causes," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 1(2), pages 107-127, August.
    4. Tugce, Cuhadaroglu, 2013. "My Group Beats Your Group: Evaluating Non-Income Inequalities," SIRE Discussion Papers 2013-49, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    5. Teixidó Figueras, Jordi & Duro Moreno, Juan Antonio, 2012. "Ecological Footprint Inequality: A methodological review and some results," Working Papers 2072/203168, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics.
    6. Rolf Aaberge & Audun Langørgen & Petter Lindgren, 2013. "The distributional impact of public services in," Discussion Papers 746, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    7. Sudip Ranjan Basu, 2017. "Do data show divergence? Revisiting global income inequality trends," Asia-Pacific Development Journal, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), vol. 24(1), pages 23-53, June.
    8. Tara Watson & Sara McLanahan, 2011. "Marriage Meets the Joneses: Relative Income, Identity, and Marital Status," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 46(3), pages 482-517.
    9. Alexander Armstrong & Frank D. Lewis, 2009. "Capital Constraints And European Migration To Canada: Evidence From The 1920s Passenger Lists," Working Paper 1230, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    10. Guillermo Cruces, 2005. "Income Fluctuations, Poverty and Well-Being Over Time: Theory and Application to Argentina," Labor and Demography 0502007, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Udo Ebert & Patrick Moyes, 2000. "Adjusting Incomes for Needs: Can One Avoid Equivalence Scales?," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 0917, Econometric Society.
    12. Loree, Jacob, 2015. "State Level Income Inequality and Individual Self-Reported Health Status: Evidence from the United States," MPRA Paper 72638, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Patricia Beeson & Lara Shore-Sheppard & Tara Watson, 2010. "Local Fiscal Policies and Urban Wage Structures," Public Finance Review, , vol. 38(5), pages 540-584, September.
    14. Basu, Kaushik & Foster, James E, 1998. "On Measuring Literacy," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(451), pages 1733-1749, November.
    15. David A. Green & Christopher Worswick, 2017. "Canadian economics research on immigration through the lens of theories of justice," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 50(5), pages 1262-1303, December.
    16. Ruiz-Castillo, Javier, 1994. "The evolution of the standard of living in Spain, 1973-74 to 1980-81," UC3M Working papers. Economics 2909, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.
    17. Peter J. Lambert & Xavier Ramos, 2001. "Welfare comparisons: sequential procedures for heterogenous population," Working Papers wp0114, Department of Applied Economics at Universitat Autonoma of Barcelona.
    18. Alex Armstrong & Frank D. Lewis, 2012. "International migration with capital constraints: interpreting migration from the Netherlands to Canada in the 1920s," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 45(2), pages 732-754, May.
    19. Juan Gabriel Rodríguez & Rafael Salas & Irene Perrote, 2005. "Partial Horizontal Inequity Orderings: A Non‐parametric Approach," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 67(3), pages 347-368, June.
    20. Patrick Moyes & Stephen Bazen, 2003. "International Comparisons of Income Distribution," LIS Working papers 341, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cpp:issued:v:29:y:2003:i:1:p:33-51. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Iver Chong (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.utpjournals.press/loi/cpp .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.