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International students who become permanent residents in CanadaInsights on Canadian Society
International students who become permanent residents in Canada

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by Yuqian Lu and Feng Hou

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Introduction

Every year, tens of thousands of international students from all over the world are attracted to Canada to pursue educational opportunities. Since the 1990s, Canada has experienced rapid growth in its numbers of international students. Together with temporary foreign workers and International Experience Canada, international students are one of the three classes of temporary economic residents that are admitted to Canada.^Note 1 According to a strategic plan released in early 2014, the Canadian government hopes to attract 450,000 international students by 2022, which will double the number of international students currently studying in the country.^Note 2

The large inflow of international students provides Canada with a large pool of well-educated individuals from which to select permanent residents. Among temporary foreign residents who obtained a study permit between 1990 and 2014, more than 270,000 (19%) became permanent residents by 2014.^Note 3 Additional measures to attract highly educated international students and facilitate their transition to eventual immigration were added in the late 2000s, when Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) permitted international students to seek work opportunities and acquire the skilled work experience required to apply for permanent residence.^Note 4

Landed immigrants who first arrive in Canada as international students have some advantages over other immigrants. They enter Canada at a relatively young age; their Canadian educational qualifications, unlike foreign credentials, are easily understood by Canadian employers; they tend to be more proficient in one of the official languages; and they are likely to have a better knowledge of the Canadian labour market and social networks that may facilitate job searches. Accordingly, immigrants who are former international students are expected to face fewer integration barriers than immigrants who have been educated abroad.^Note 5 The labour market outcomes of international students who become landed immigrants, however, vary across characteristics such as education level, language ability and source region.^Note 6 A better understanding of the profile of international students provides additional insights into the ability of these potential future immigrants to integrate into the Canadian labour market.

This article examines trends in the number of international students to Canada and their rate of transition into permanent residence. The analysis focuses on the characteristics of international students in different cohorts, defined in terms of the year in which they first received a permit authorizing them to study in Canada. The article also provides information on international students who subsequently became landed immigrants.

The data originate from the Canadian Employer–Employee Dynamics Database (CEEDD), a data initiative matching Canadian business enterprises with the workers they employ on the basis of multiple sources of administrative data. These sources include the Temporary Residents File and the Immigrant Landing File (see Data sources, methods and definitions), allowing researchers to draw inferences about the immigration pathways of international students in Canada.

International students in Canada

In this paper, the number of international students refers to total entries of temporary residents who obtained a study permit for the first time (“initial” entries).^Note 7 The number of international students in Canada rose steadily between the early 1990s and the early 2010s. Between 1990 and 1994, Canada received approximately 158,000 international students (an annual average of approximately 31,000). By the end of the period from 2005 to 2009, the number of international students doubled to approximately 340,000 (an annual average of approximately 68,000), and by 2010 to 2013, the number reached 385,000 (an annual average of about 96,000) (Table 1).

International students come to Canada at various ages and attend various types of educational institutions. For example, some come to Canada through student exchange programs at the high school/secondary level while others come to obtain a post-graduate degree from a Canadian university. In short, they are a heterogeneous group.

The majority of international students (74% to 80%, depending on the cohort) are under the age of 25. However, the proportions who were aged 18 to 24 increased over successive cohorts as an increasing share of international students reached higher levels of educational attainment. In the early 1990s, 43% of international students came to Canada to attend primary and secondary schools, while 18% pursued a university education. In the early 2010s, more international students attended universities (29%) than primary and secondary schools (22%).^Note 8

The composition of source country/region also changed considerably. Most notably, the proportion of international students arriving from China and India increased from 6% to 37% from the early 1990s to the early 2010s,^Note 9 while the share from the United States and Europe declined from 32% to 18%. The proportion of international students from Africa changed little, ranging from 6% to 8% over the period.

The geographic distribution of international students within Canada generally follows the patterns observed among new immigrants. The majority of international students resided in Ontario, British Columbia and Quebec, particularly in the metropolitan areas of Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal.

Transition to permanent resident status

International students likely come to Canada for various reasons. Some may intend to return to their home country once they have acquired their Canadian qualifications, while others may intend to remain in Canada for a period of time to obtain work experience in an advanced economy. Still others may hope to become landed immigrants and remain in Canada permanently.^Note 10

It is possible to estimate the proportion of international students who become permanent residents by calculating a cumulative transition rate. The cumulative rate, which can be calculated for any cohort, is the share of international students who become landed immigrants a number of years after obtaining their first study permit.^Note 11 For example, among international students who obtained their first study permit between 1995 and 1999, about 15% became permanent residents in the five years that followed. When the period of observation is extended to the first 10 years after the study permit was received, that proportion rises to 20%, and then to 22% by the fifteenth year (Chart 1).

Of the international students in the early 1990s (1990 to 1994), late 1990s (1995 to 1999) and early 2000s (2000 to 2004) cohorts, those in the early 1990s cohort were the most likely to subsequently become permanent residents in Canada. Over the 10 years after they received their first student permit, 27% of the early 1990s cohort became permanent residents, while this was the case for 20% and 25% of individuals in the late 1990s and early 2000s cohorts, respectively. The transition rates of international students in the late 2000s cohorts looked like those of the early 2000s cohorts over the first 5 years after receiving a study permit, but additional data must be accumulated to see whether this trajectory continues over the longer term.

In addition to varying across cohorts, rates of transition into permanent residence also vary across sociodemographic characteristics such as sex, age, level of study and source country. Again, transition rates by characteristic are examined at the tenth year after the first study permit is received (Table 2).

Within all cohorts, male international students tended to have higher transition rates than females by a margin of about two percentage points. In terms of age groups, transition rates were lower among international students who first obtained their study permit between the ages of 18 and 24—but this was only the case for the early 1990s- and late-1990s cohorts. Within the early 2000s cohorts, transition rates were more consistent across age groups, ranging from 24% to 28%.

In terms of educational attainment, international students in the early 2000s cohort who were studying at the bachelor level or above had higher transition rates than students at other levels of study. Moreover, the transition rates for university students increased across cohorts. Indeed, almost one-half (49%) of international students in the early 2000s cohort who pursued graduate studies obtained permanent residence in Canada in the subsequent 10 years, while this was the case for 33% of those in the early 1990s cohort and 42% of those in the late 1990s cohort. The transition rate among international students who came to Canada to study at the bachelor level also increased, from about 22% to 32%.

Such increases reflect various modifications to the points system of immigrant selection during the 1990s and 2000s. These modifications enhanced the requirements for educational attainment and language ability in the evaluation of economic immigrants, and thus likely benefited international students who came to Canada for a university education.

The transition rates also differed by source country/region. International students from Northern/Western Europe, the United States, Japan and South Korea had lower transition rates than those from Southern/Eastern Europe, other parts of Asia and Africa. More particularly, the transition rates among international students from India, Africa and China were about three times higher than the rates obtained by those who came from Northern/Western Europe and the United States.

The large variation in the transition rates by source country/region may be related to the differences between source countries in economic development, job opportunities, and social and political environment. It is possible that international students from countries with lower levels of economic development and less favourable social and political environments are more motivated to seek permanent residence in Canada.

The relationship between the transition rates of international students (at the tenth year) and the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita (in 2005 constant US dollars) of their source country supports this hypothesis (Chart 2). In the chart, each bubble represents a source country. The location of the bubble indicates a source country’s position in the log of GDP per capita and the transition rate of their international students in Canada (among those who arrived between 1990 and 2004). The size of the bubble is weighted by the number of students. The lower the source country GDP per capita, the higher the rate of transition to permanent residence among international students in Canada.^Note 12

Characteristics of immigrants who are former international students

Having considered the size and characteristics of the international student population and the factors associated with transitions to permanent residence, this analysis now focuses on selected characteristics of international students who became permanent residents.

As noted above, the points system that Canada uses to select principal applicants in the economic class was changed in the 2000s. Specifically, principal applicants in the economic class received more points for being of prime working age, proficient in the official languages, and having Canadian work experience and a university degree.^Note 13 Changes in the characteristics of international students who became permanent residents in Canada were observed in subsequent years.

For the international students who became landed immigrants in Canada, the number of years they studied in Canada increased. For example, the proportion who completed at least three years of study in Canada increased from 57% to 79% among those from the early 1990s and early 2000s cohorts, respectively. The increasing length of study reflects the increasing portion of international students who were at the postsecondary level rather than at the primary or secondary level, along with an increase in their age profile (Table 3).

Hence, among landed immigrants who were previously international students, the proportion aged 25 or over at landing increased from 52% to 71% while the proportion who had a university degree at landing increased from 36% to 56% among the early 1990s and early 2000s cohorts, respectively. The share who received a work permit prior to landing also increased.^Note 14

Finally, the admission categories through which they became permanent residents in Canada changed across cohorts. Specifically, the proportion who became permanent residents as principal applicants in the economic class increased from 30% among those from the early 1990s cohorts to 48% among those from the early 2000s cohort. This was consistent with the change in immigration policy noted above, as well as with changes in the characteristics of the international student population in general.^Note 15

Overall, through the 1990s and 2000s, landed immigrants who had previously been international students spent a longer period of time studying in Canada, were increasingly likely to have studied at the postsecondary level, were increasingly likely to have received a work permit prior to landing, and were in their twenties when they became landed immigrants. The extent to which these changes subsequently improved the labour market outcomes of this group is a topic for further research.

Conclusion

This study has shown that the number of international students has increased continuously since the 1990s, and that their characteristics also have changed over time. A rising proportion of international students is arriving at the age of 18 or over to pursue a university degree. The composition of source regions has also changed. While Japan and the United States were the two top source countries in the early 1990s, they were replaced by South Korea and China by the early 2000s, and by China and India in the early 2010s.

This study also examined the transition rates of international students into permanent residence. Depending on the cohort of arrival, between 20% and 27% of international students became permanent residents in the 10 years after their first study permit was issued. The rates of transition to permanent residence, however, differed considerably by source country. International students from less-developed countries (or with a lower GDP per capita) typically had higher transition rates than those who came from countries with a higher level of GDP per capita.

Lastly, the period from the early 1990s to the early 2000s witnessed a major shift in the transition pathways to permanent residence for international students. Over time, international students who became immigrants increasingly initiated the application as principal applicants rather than being admitted as spouses or dependants in the economic class or family class. Accordingly, more former international student immigrants are prime-age workers who are proficient in one or both official languages, and who acquired a university education and work experience in Canada.

Yuqian Lu is a researcher with the Social Analysis and Modelling Division of Statistics Canada and Feng Hou is a senior researcher in the same division.

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