July 2026
Spotlight on data and research
Canadian-resident travel to the United States: A year in review
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 U.S. administration in early 2025 and the implementation of America First policies, Canadians’ travel plans shifted abruptly. This article looked at a year of data from the National Travel Survey and found that the reduction in travel to the U.S. in 2025 (7.1 million fewer visits compared to 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 U.S. (-21.5% or 3.2 million fewer visits) in favour of overseas options (+12.2% or 1.1 million more visits). Visits to the U.S. for family-related travel were less prone to destination substitution and declined by 9.0% (-536,000 visits) in 2025.
Insights
Disparities between immigrant and Canadian-born families across the wealth 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 shifting from the bottom to the top quartiles.
Using data from the 2016, 2019 and 2023 Survey of Financial Security, this study shows that recent immigrant families hold 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 hold 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. This is despite a substantial absolute difference of nearly a quarter million dollars.
Differences in employment rates between immigrants with disabilities and Canadian-born persons with disabilities, 2022 to 2024
Persons with disabilities face barriers to employment in Canada, but these barriers are not experienced uniformly across the population. This study examines employment rates among immigrants and Canadian-born persons with disabilities aged 18 to 64, 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, one-half of immigrant men with disabilities were employed, compared with about one-third of Canadian-born men with disabilities. By comparison, four-fifths of their counterparts with a bachelor’s degree or above were employed.
While immigrant women with a bachelor’s degree or above had a lower employment rate (73%) than their Canadian-born counterparts (81%), employment rates between these groups were similar at lower levels of education. This matters because immigrant women with disabilities were more likely to hold a university degree, yet did not experience the same employment advantages, highlighting potential barriers to fully utilizing their skills.
Research articles
Workforce aging and labour productivity
Canada’s population, and consequently its workforce, is 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. This study examines the impact of the workforce aging on Canadian labour productivity using firm-level measures for the age of the Canadian workforce.
The paper applies multiple approaches to look at how the 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 firm workforce age rises, peaking among firms with an average worker age between 41 and 50, after which it declines. Firms in this peak group are 8.8% to 11.1% more productive than the reference group (firms with an average worker age of 25 and younger) and 1.0% to 2.8% more productive than firms with an average worker age of 56 and older.
The likelihood and timing of mothers’ return to work and child care arrangements after parental leave, revisited
This study 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 2020–2023 Employment Insurance Coverage Survey and focused 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 — 83% amongst mothers choosing the EI standard and 82% amongst those choosing the extended benefits. Of those 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%).
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