Economic and Social Reports

Spotlight on data and research

Immigration selection factors and the earnings of economic principal applicants

This Spotlight article summarizes the findings of a new study by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and Statistics Canada that updates a previous report on the relative importance of immigrant selection criteria in predicting earnings of economic immigrants in Canada.

The report found that the level of pre-landing Canadian earnings of temporary foreign workers or international students, a factor that was not considered in the earlier report and not included in the current immigration selection factors, was the most effective predictor of post-immigration earnings in the short and medium term. While the predictive power of this factor declined with years in Canada, it still remained one of the strongest factors in the longer term.

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Research articles

Accuracy of parental perceptions about licensed child care in Canada

Around 20 to 30% of Canadian parents believe the child care they use is regulated when it may not be. This study examines the accuracy of parental responses to the 2019 Survey on Early Learning and Child Care.

Around 80% of parents accurately reported the regulated status of their centre-based child care, compared to 49% of parents who used home-based services. However, those who reported using unregulated care were more accurate than those who reported using regulated care. Parents of children aged 1 to 3 years old were more accurate than parents of 4 to 5 year olds or than parents with infants. Higher levels of parental education and household income were associated with more accurate responses.

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Entering postsecondary education after job loss: Family-level considerations

As labour markets in Canada and around the world witness advances in robotics and artificial intelligence, some jobs face a growing risk of being lost or transformed due to automation. In this context, it is important to understand how displaced workers in various types of families, such as couples or lone-parents, cope with job loss, for example by returning to school after being laid-off.  

This study shows that the propensity of displaced workers to enter postsecondary education after job loss is fairly similar across family types. The types of educational program selected and their duration also appear fairly similar across family types. Taken together, these findings do not support the hypothesis that post-displacement transitions into postsecondary education are a “luxury” that only certain types of families can afford. 

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