The Earnings of Immigrant Men in Canada: Job Tenure, Cohort, and Macroeconomic Conditions

Using eleven cross-sectional surveys spanning 1981–92, the authors compare the earnings of immigrant and native-born men in Canada. Apparently, recent immigrant cohorts have suffered no decline in earnings. Job tenure is found to be a strongly significant determinant of earnings; previous estimates of immigrant earnings differentials, which have not incorporated job tenure information, may partly reflect differences in tenure between immigrants and the native-born. When the sample is restricted to pairs of surveys that are close to the Census survey years, the estimates of cohort effects are sensitive to the choice of survey years. One possible explanation for that sensitivity is suggested by the finding that macroeconomic conditions are a statistically significant determinant of the rate of assimilation of recent immigrants.