Seeking Success in Canada and the United States: The Determinants of Labour Market Outcomes Among the Children of Immigrants

Feng Hou and Garnett Picot

Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series from Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch

Abstract:

This paper reviews recent research on the determinants of the labour market outcomes of the children of immigrants in Canada and in the U.S. New research on outcomes in Canada is also presented. In the aggregate, and with no controls, the labour market outcomes of the second generation-the children of immigrants-are equal to, or better than, those of the third-and-higher generations-the children of domestic-born parents. However, the story is somewhat different after one has accounted for the superior educational levels and the residential locations of the second generation. In the U.S, the second generation's advantage in labour market outcomes disappears; in Canada, among second-generation members of a visible-minority group, the advantage turns marginally negative. Ethnic group/source region differences in outcomes loom large in both countries. The important determinants of the earnings gap between the second generation and the third-and-higher generations include educational attainment, which accounts for about half of the wage gap, residential location, ethnic background, the degree of "ethnic capital," and the educational and earnings mobility between immigrants and their children.

Keywords: Children and youth; Education; training and learning; Educational attainment; Ethnic diversity and immigration; Ethnic groups and generations in Canada; Immigrant children and youth; Labour market and income (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-03-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab and nep-mig
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/catalogue/11F0019M2011331 (application/pdf)
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/catalogue/11F0019M2011331 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:stc:stcp3e:2011331e

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series from Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Mark Brown ().