Economic and Social Reports, July 2026

Released: 2026-07-22

There are five new articles available in today's release of Economic and Social Reports.

Canadians shifted international travel from United States to overseas destinations in 2025

The United States has long been Canada's primary international travel destination, partly because of its proximity and warmer climate. Following the change in the US administration in early 2025 and the implementation of America First policies, Canadians' travel plans shifted abruptly. The article "Canadian-resident travel to the United States: A year in review" looked at a year of data from the National Travel Survey and found that the reduction in travel to the United States in 2025 (7.1 million fewer visits compared with 2024) was almost entirely offset by an increase in both domestic (+5.0 million) and overseas (+1.3 million) visits.

In 2025, Canadians shifted outbound leisure travel away from the United States (-21.5%; -3.2 million visits) in favour of overseas options (+12.2%; +1.1 million visits). Visits to the United States for family-related travel were less prone to destination substitution and declined by 9.0% (-536,000 visits) in 2025.

Travel spending on visits to the United States declined by $3.3 billion to total $18.8 billion in 2025. Lower spending on leisure-related visits, which fell by $2.2 billion to $12.1 billion, drove this decline. In contrast, spending on leisure-related visits overseas grew by $3.6 billion in 2025 to reach $22.8 billion, accounting for just under half of overall expenditures abroad. Domestically, 2025 expenditures rose 8.7% from 2024 to $81.3 billion, driven by an 8.1% increase in spending on leisure-related travel.

Workforce aging and labour productivity

Canada's population, and consequently its workforce, are aging. Research often shows that an aging workforce is associated with less productivity growth. While older workers bring valuable experience to firms, they may also be less familiar with the new technologies that are essential for raising productivity. The study "Workforce aging and labour productivity" examines the impact of the workforce aging on Canadian labour productivity using firm-level measures for the age of the Canadian workforce from 2001 to 2022.

The study applies multiple approaches to look at how the average age of the workforce within firms relates to the labour productivity of those firms. Although the estimated results vary across approaches, the overall pattern remains consistent. In general, labour productivity rises as the average age of a firm's workforce rises, peaking among firms with an average worker age of 41 to 50 years, after which it declines. Firms in this group are 8.8% to 11.1% more productive than the reference group (firms with an average worker age of 25 years and younger) and 1.0% to 2.8% more productive than firms with an average worker age of 56 years and older. Among the industries analyzed, the construction sector is most affected, while the finance and insurance sectors are the least affected.

By linking the aging workforce to firm performance, this study shows how the average age of a firm's workforce relates to its productivity. It provides a first look at how the aging workforce is directly affecting firms in Canada.

Wealth gaps between immigrant and Canadian-born families shift across the distribution

A new joint study by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and Statistics Canada shows that wealth disparities between immigrant and Canadian-born families vary across the wealth distribution, with the size of the gap narrowing from the bottom to the top quartiles.

Using data from the 2016, 2019 and 2023 Survey of Financial Security, the study "Disparities between immigrant and Canadian-born families across the wealth distribution" shows that recent immigrant families held less wealth than Canadian-born families at comparable ages. The gap is widest at the bottom of the wealth distribution, where recent immigrant families are in net debt (-$6,100) on average, compared with a small amount of positive wealth ($1,700) among Canadian-born families. In the second and third quartiles, recent immigrants held about half the wealth of their Canadian-born counterparts. At the top end of the distribution, the relative gap narrows sharply, with recent immigrants holding 16% less wealth than Canadian-born people. This is despite a substantial absolute difference of nearly a quarter of a million dollars.

Lower home equity and smaller private pension and Registered Retirement Savings Plan holdings drove the wealth difference seen for recent immigrants. In contrast, established immigrant families had higher wealth than Canadian-born families in the lower half of the distribution, largely because of higher home equity and greater holdings in other real estate. This difference disappears at the top of the distribution, where immigrant families held similar overall wealth but had less diversified portfolios.

Educational attainment shapes employment outcomes differently for immigrants and Canadian-born persons with disabilities

Persons with disabilities face barriers to employment in Canada, but these barriers are not experienced uniformly across the population. The study "Differences in employment rates between immigrants with disabilities and Canadian-born persons with disabilities, 2022 to 2024," examines employment rates among immigrants and Canadian-born persons with disabilities aged 18 to 64 years, focusing on differences by gender and educational attainment.

Overall, immigrant men with disabilities had a higher employment rate (73%) than Canadian-born men with disabilities (64%). However, this difference was concentrated among those who had not completed high school, and employment rates were similar at higher levels of education. Among those without a high school diploma, half of immigrant men with disabilities were employed, compared with about one-third of Canadian-born men with disabilities. By comparison, four-fifths of immigrant and Canadian-born men with disabilities who had a bachelor's degree or above were employed.

Among women with disabilities and a bachelor's degree or above, immigrant women had a lower employment rate (73%) than Canadian-born women (81%). However, among women with disabilities and lower levels of education, employment rates were similar between immigrant women and Canadian-born women. This matters because immigrant women with disabilities were more likely to hold a university degree than their Canadian-born counterparts, yet they did not experience the same employment advantages, highlighting potential barriers to fully utilizing their skills.

These results highlight how differences in employment among persons with disabilities vary not only by immigrant status, but also by education and gender, pointing to distinct experiences across groups.

The likelihood and timing of mothers' return to work and their child care arrangements after parental leave

The study "The likelihood and timing of mothers' return to work and child care arrangements after parental leave, revisited," examines the likelihood and timing of mothers' return to work following parental leave, as well as their child care arrangements, with particular attention to recent policy changes to the Employment Insurance (EI) parental benefit program and the introduction of the Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care system. The analysis used data from the 2020-to-2023 Employment Insurance Coverage Survey and focused on mothers with a child aged 18 months or less who had worked as an employee prior to the birth of their child.

About the same percentage of mothers returned or planned to return to work within a known length of leave, at 83% among mothers choosing the EI standard benefits and 82% among those choosing the extended benefits. Of mothers who did not receive parental benefits, 65% returned or planned to return to work. Mothers who had a higher-quality job—characterized by a permanent job, collective agreement coverage and higher hourly wages—were more likely to return to work following parental leave. Mothers who chose the EI extended benefits tended to return to work later than mothers who chose the EI standard benefits. Mothers who chose the EI extended parental benefits (20%) were more likely to rely on the child's other parent for care when returning to work than those who chose the EI standard benefits (13%).

This study's findings underscore the role of job quality and flexible parental benefits in understanding employment of mothers with young children after parental leave.

Products

The July 2026 issue of Economic and Social Reports, Vol. 6, no. 7 (Catalogue number36280001), is now available. This issue contains the articles "Differences in employment rates between immigrants with disabilities and Canadian-born persons with disabilities, 2022 to 2024," "Disparities between immigrant and Canadian-born families across the wealth distribution," "The likelihood and timing of mothers' return to work and child care arrangements after parental leave, revisited," "Workforce aging and labour productivity" and "Canadian-resident travel to the United States: A year in review."

Contact information

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