The Relative Labour Market Performance of Former International Students: Evidence from the Canadian National Graduates Survey

Zong Jia Chen () and Mikal Skuterud
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Zong Jia Chen: University of Waterloo

No 10699, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Canada is increasingly looking to international students as a source of postsecondary tuition revenues and new immigrants. By 2014, international students accounted for 10% of graduates from Canadian postsecondary institutions, up from 3% in 2000, and 11% of new permanent residents, up from 7% in 2010. This article compares the labour market performance of former international students (FISs) entering the Canadian labour market during the first decade of the 2000s to their Canadian-born-and-educated (CBE) and foreign-born-and-educated (FBE) counterparts. We find that FISs outperform FBE immigrants by a substantial margin and underperform CBE individuals graduating from similar academic programs by a relatively modest margin. We also find some limited evidence, particularly among women, of a deterioration in FIS outcomes through the 2000s relative to both comparison groups. We argue that this deterioration is consistent with a quality tradeoff as postsecondary institutions and governments have reached deeper into international student pools to meet their demands for students and new immigrants without a commensurate increase in their supply.

Keywords: international students; labour market integration; immigrant selection policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I23 J31 J61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39 pages
Date: 2017-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab and nep-mig
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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