Technological change, occupational tasks and declining immigrant outcomes: Implications for earnings and income inequality in Canada

Casey Warman and Christopher Worswick

Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, 2015, vol. 48, issue 2, 736-772

Abstract: The earnings and occupational task requirements of immigrants to Canada are analyzed. The growing education levels of immigrants in the 1990s have not led to a large improvement in earnings as one might expect if growing computerization and the resulting technological change was leading to a rising return to non‐routine cognitive skills and a greater wage return to university education. Controlling for education, we find a pronounced cross‐arrival cohort decline in earnings that coincided with cross‐cohort declines in cognitive occupational task requirements and cross‐cohort increases in manual occupational task requirements. The immigrant earnings outcomes had only a small effect on overall Canadian earnings inequality. Changement technique, tâches occupationnelles, et résultats déclinants pour les immigrants : Implications pour l’inégalité des gains et des revenus au Canada. Les auteurs analysent les gains et les prérequis des tâches occupationnelles des immigrants. Les niveaux d’éducation croissants des immigrants dans les années 1990 n’ont pas entraîné une grande amélioration dans les gains comme on aurait pu s’y attendre, si l’informatisation accrue et les changements techniques qui s’ensuivent ont entraîné un rendement croissant sur des habiletés cognitives non‐routinières et un rendement salarial plus grand sur l’éducation universitaire. Normalisant pour le niveau d’éducation, on découvre un déclin entre cohortes dans les gains qui coïncide avec un déclin dans ce que réclament les tâches en termes d’habiletés cognitives, et un accroissement de ce que réclament les occupations manuelles. L’effet de ces changements sur les gains des immigrants n’a eu qu’un faible impact sur l’inégalité des gains au Canada.

Date: 2015
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https://doi.org/10.1111/caje.12142

Related works:
Journal Article: Technological change, occupational tasks and declining immigrant outcomes: Implications for earnings and income inequality in Canada (2015)
Working Paper: Technological Change, Occupational Tasks and Declining Immigrant Outcomes: Implications for Earnings and Income Inequality in Canada (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:canjec:v:48:y:2015:i:2:p:736-772

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