A9 Recent IMDB Research
Reported by Angelina Duhig
See the PowerPoint presentations here.
Organizers:
Stan Kustec, Citizenship and Immigration Canada
Colleen Dempsey, Citizenship and Immigration Canada
The IMDB is used as an information source in the performance of immigrants through a range of socio-economic characteristics. Such performances help to provide an understanding of the economic and labour integration of immigrants as well as an analysis of the different economic performances of different cohorts of immigrants in Canada.
Presenters:
Stan Kustec – Economic Outcomes by Country of Birth
- The PNP (Provincial Nominee Program) and the Live in Caregiver program are both used to integrate landed immigrants into the Canadian labour market.
- Some important variables for the analysis include the educational attainment at the time of landing, family classes, and the spouse’s economic status.
- These vary by country of birth.
Colleen Dempsey – Recent Outcomes of Economic Immigrants – Skilled Workers and Provincial Nominees.
- This Analysis compares the economic outcomes of landed immigrants in the Provincial Nominee Program compared to the Federal Skilled Program.
- Federal skills – a human capital approach – better long term effects.
- The PNP – specific skill sets – better short term effects.
- Both programs had a positive economic effect compared to landed immigrants not in either program.
3. Jamie Pitts – IMDB Research Specific to Ontario
- INB findings show improving outcomes for the economic status of immigrants but the results in Ontario are shown to be lacking compared to the rest of Canada.
- The results of skilled workers in Ontario are higher than other industries and skilled workers show similar results to the rest of Canada.
Words from the Audience:
Q. How does the above/below Canadian average for wages change over time and regions?
R. Specifically looking at China, there is a concentration in Ontario. Some challenges are with some human capital factors, specifically language. This also depends on region (average earnings per region). China sends a large portion of IT workers.
Comment. The IMDP reflects a lot of different types of income other than economic eg. self-employment. For Chinese immigrants, what is not evident is self-employment. The average who reported self-employment was 10-12%.
Provincial nominees spend some time in temporary status before landing. This varies among Provincial Nominees in terms of time in temporary status. Now the IMDB allows access to this data which will be available sometime next year, however, this information will only be available from those who file taxes.
Q. Is there any way to go below provincial analysis eg. Rural areas?
R. Yes, the IMDB census geography can look at rural areas, a strategy that starts with landing data.
Q. Can the economic performance of the second generation be tracked?
R. It has been in the census. It could be possible but it is a lot of work. The census data is the best place to go for generational status.
Q. Did the data get skewed at all?
R. There are definitely regional differences. This encourages replicating work with specific provinces because there will be differences.
Q. Who will not file taxes?
R. People not in the labour market, onward negotiations, and young immigrants. The data does now look at family configuration. There is more information about imputed adult immigrants, child immigrants, and others like that to capture exactly what is going on.
Comment. It is ironic that we are hearing a message that diversity is important but then data shows that it doesn’t look good. Maybe the problem is with what we are doing here about diversity, not of the immigrants.
Q. Do we need to be selective about who comes?
R. I’m a researcher, not a policy maker. We are here looking at average performance. We could use information like this with a different lens, for example, socio-demographic characteristics such as language issues. We are not looking at it like these are poor outcomes but that there is always room for improvement.
