Working Paper: NBER ID: w21591
Authors: Neeraj Kaushal; Yao Lu; Nicole Denier; Julia Shuhuah Wang; Stephen J. Trejo
Abstract: We study the short-term trajectories of employment, hours worked, and real wages of immigrants in Canada and the U.S. using nationally representative longitudinal datasets covering 1996-2008. Models with person fixed effects show that on average immigrant men in Canada do not experience any relative growth in these three outcomes compared to men born in Canada. Immigrant men in the U.S., on the other hand, experience positive annual growth in all three domains relative to U.S. born men. This difference is largely on account of low-educated immigrant men, who experience faster or longer periods of relative growth in employment and wages in the U.S. than in Canada. We further compare longitudinal and cross-sectional trajectories and find that the latter over-estimate wage growth of earlier arrivals, presumably reflecting selective return migration.
Keywords: immigration; labor market; economic assimilation; Canada; US
JEL Codes: J15; J18
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Immigrant men in Canada do not experience significant relative growth in employment (J69) | Economic assimilation of immigrant men in Canada (N92) |
| Immigrant men in the US experience positive annual growth in employment (J68) | Economic assimilation of immigrant men in the US (J69) |
| Low-educated immigrant men in the US show faster growth in employment (J69) | Economic assimilation of low-educated immigrant men in the US (J69) |
| Recent immigrant men in both countries experience some form of economic assimilation (J69) | Economic assimilation of recent immigrant men in both countries (J69) |
| Immigrant men in Canada for over 20 years experience a decline in employment and wages (J69) | Economic assimilation of long-term immigrant men in Canada (J69) |
| Recent immigrant women in the US experience economic assimilation (K37) | Economic assimilation of recent immigrant women in the US (K37) |
| Recent immigrant women in Canada do not experience wage assimilation (J79) | Economic outcomes of recent immigrant women in Canada (N32) |
| Differences in labor market and welfare institutions between Canada and the US incentivize greater economic assimilation in the US (J68) | Economic assimilation of immigrants (K37) |