Labour Market Matters - March 2014

The mobility of immigrants’ earnings and their experience in getting ahead in the Canadian labour market are reflection of the general state of economic opportunity in Canada. High or increasing degrees of upward mobility of earnings may indicate increasing opportunities for economic advancement, whereas low degrees of upward mobility or high degrees of downward mobility may reflect limited or deteriorating opportunities for economic advancement. A study entitled “Earnings Mobility of Canadian Immigrants: A Transition Matrix Approach†(CLSRN Working Paper no. 127) by CLSRN affiliates Michael Abbott and Charles Beach (both of Queen’s University) examines earnings mobility patterns of immigrants arriving in Canada over ten years after landing in Canada for three landing cohorts – 1982, 1988 and 1994 – under four separate admission classes: independent economic, other economic, family class, and refugees, in order to determine whether, and how, immigrants in one admission class fare relative to those arriving in other classes. A paper entitled “The Fertility of Recent Immigrants to Canada†(CLSRN Working Paper no. 121) by CLSRN affiliates Alicia Adsera (Princeton University) and Ana Ferrer (University of Waterloo) focuses on the fertility outcomes of migrants around the years immediately before and after migration. Using data from the confidential files of the Canadian Census for the years 1991 through 2006, the researchers examine native born-immigrant differentials in new births and find evidence of a relatively rapid growth in births during immigrant’s initial yeas in Canada. They estimate that the probability a married immigrant woman has an infant upon arrival to the country is almost half that of a Canadian-born woman with similar characteristics (4% versus 8%). The prevalence of infants in immigrant households, however, increases thereafter, coming close to that of Canadian born around two years after women migrate. There are some differences in fertility across origins that suggest that cultural differences matters. European, American and Asian immigrants show the lowest levels of fertility during the first years after migration. In fact, these groups do not reach parity with native-born women during the first five years after arrival. African and Middle Eastern immigrants, on the other hand, show the highest levels of fertility among all migrant groups, relative to the native born, earlier in the migration process.