Educational attainment of childhood immigrants: how does immigration type matter?

This study examines the extent to which the way immigrant parents are selected and admitted matters in the educational attainment of childhood immigrants above and beyond the effects of conventional factors of immigrant vulnerability and resources. Using Canada’s 2011 National Household Survey linked with immigrant landing records, this study finds large differences by admission class in university completion rates for childhood immigrants. Children of skilled workers and business immigrants had much higher university completion rates than children of refugees who, in turn, had higher rates than children of live-in caregivers and in the family class. Advantages or disadvantages associated with the admission class of immigrant parents are passed on to their children, resulting partly from group differences in the education and language ability of parents, and partly from the unique pre- and post-migration circumstances experienced by each immigrant class.     

An Assessment of Life Satisfaction Responses on Recent Statistics Canada Surveys

Statistics Canada’s General Social Survey (GSS) and Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) offer a valuable opportunity to examine the stability of life satisfaction responses and their correlates from year to year within a consistent analytical framework. Capitalizing on the strengths of these surveys, this paper addresses two questions. First, how much variability is observed from year to year and across surveys in the distribution of life satisfaction responses and what accounts for it? Second, how much variability is observed in the direction and magnitude of the correlation between life satisfaction and a consistent set of socioeconomic characteristics? The study shows that the mean level of life satisfaction reported varies from year to year in the GSS but remains stable in the CCHS. This pattern in variability is associated with survey content preceding the life satisfaction question. In contrast, the direction and magnitude of the relationships between life satisfaction and common socioeconomic characteristics is generally consistent between the two surveys and over time.

     

Reversal of Fortunes or Continued Success? Cohort Differences in Education and Earnings of Childhood Immigrants1

Using several years of Canadian census data, this study examines cohort differences in educational attainment and earnings among childhood immigrants who arrived in Canada between 1960 and 1989. Successive cohorts of childhood immigrants had increasingly higher university completion rates than their Canadian-born peers by age 25–34. We find that this lead was tempered by declining earnings of immigrant parents relative to Canadian-born parents, particularly among the 1980s cohort. Despite rising university completion rates, wages of male (but not female) childhood immigrants lagged behind those of their Canadian-born peers. This gap can be accounted for largely by the rising share of members of racial minority groups and the decreasing incidence of full-time employment.