Pathways to Successful Economic Integration: The Dynamics of Low Income and Low Wages among New Immigrants to Canada

Contemporary research on immigrant economic integration identifies growing economic disadvantages faced by immigrants and probes sources of the disadvantages by focusing on immigrants’ pre-migration and ascriptive characteristics. However, little empirical evaluation exists on how immigrants overcome their initial economic disadvantages over time. This dissertation departs from previous research by studying the roles of two post-migration factors – schooling (formal education and language training) and the employment of female spouses – in the exits from low wages and low family income (poverty) among recent immigrants. The analysis of the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada (LSIC) – a three-wave survey of immigrants who arrived in Canada in 2000-2001 – produces three main findings. First, investing in host country formal education is beneficial for the economic advancement of new immigrants – especially highly educated ones. This finding confirms the role of skill upgrading programs for adult immigrants as an effective immigrant settlement policy, given that the majority of recent immigrants have postsecondary education but that their initial economic hardships are growing. Second, the benefits of English/French language lessons are real. This finding counters a common criticism that language lessons for adult new immigrants, which are often funded by the governments, are not helpful. Indeed, standard logistic regression analysis of the LSIC data shows that immigrants who enrolled in language lessons have no advantage in exiting poverty or low wages. However, the bivariate probit model demonstrates that this is because unmeasured characteristics of the language lesson participants confound the true benefit of language lessons. Third, this dissertation research highlights the role immigrant women play in lifting their families out of poverty when they work. This finding has an implication particularly for women of Arab and Middle Eastern origins as their notably lower labour force participation rates explain much of their high poverty rates.Ph