Labour Market Matters - January 2014

In North America, students with immigrant parents typically achieve higher levels of education than their counterparts with domestic-born parents. In Europe however, the opposite is typically true. In Canada, immigrants students (1st or 2nd generation) are 1.6 times as likely to attend university by age 23 as students with Canadian born parents. In Switzerland, 1st generation students are only 0.45 times as likely to attend as students with Swiss born parents, and 2nd generation students 0.8 times as likely. A paper by CLSRN affiliates Garnett Picot (Queen’s University and Statistics Canada) and Feng Hou (Statistics Canada) entitled “Why Immigrant Background Matters for University Participation: A Comparison of Switzerland and Canada†(CLSRN Working Paper no. 128) finds that differences in immigration systems as well as educational structures may be the reasons for these differences between Switzerland and Canada. “Open enrolment†– a policy which allows students to attend public schools outside their neighborhood catchment area – is intended to improve student outcomes through two primary channels: by allowing families to enroll their children in schools that are higher quality or better matches; and by creating incentives for school managers to increase effort in order to attract or retain students when faced with increasing competition. A paper entitled “Open Enrolment and Student Achievement†(CLSRN Working Paper no. 126) by CLSRN affiliates Jane Friesen (Simon Fraser University), Benjamin Cerf Harris (U.S. Census Bureau) and Simon Woodcock (Simon Fraser University) finds clear evidence that open enrolment improves student achievement.