Minorities, cognitive skills and the incomes
of Canadians
by Ross Finnie and Ronald Meng
Business and Labour Market
Analysis Division
Analytical Studies Branch research paper series, No. 196
Context
Immigration
has dramatically changed the cultural and racial make-up of Canada over the last
four decades. The shift on the source country of immigrants has made the lack
of English or French language proficiency an increasingly important barrier to
social and economic assimilation. This lack of language skills has led to the
hypothesis of what appears to be the "declining quality of immigrants" which has
led to lower earnings and a slower rate of integration.
Objective(s)
The
paper is intended to contribute to our understanding of ethnic-related income
differences in Canada . This paper is unique in the sense that it takes into account
not only education levels and standard human capital measures but it also examines
the role literacy and numeracy skills play in those patterns.
Findings
Some
minority groups have substantially lower (tested) levels of literacy and numeracy
skills than whites and other more economically successful minorities and, in the
case of certain male groups, these differences play a significant role in explaining
the observed income patterns.
The ethnic-white income gaps are, however,
much smaller for women, and the literacy and numeracy variables do not have much
of a role to play in explaining those differences.
Various policy implications
are discussed.
Data source(s)
Survey of Literary Skills Used in Daily Activities, 1989.
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the full publication.
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