Intergenerational Earnings Mobility Among the Children of Canadian
Immigrants
by Abdurrahman Aydemir, Wen-Hao Chen and Miles Corak
Family and Labour Studies Division
Analytical Studies Branch research paper series, No. 267
Context
The degree of generational mobility—the relationship between
a child’s adult labour market and social success and his or her
family background—is an important aspect of how societies function.
The extent to which children from impoverished backgrounds can realistically
aspire to better themselves, or conversely the extent to which children
from the highest strata can expect to inherit the same position as their
parents, speaks to important social issues such as the long-term consequences
of child poverty or more generally to equality of opportunity. However,
this is a topic that is also particularly relevant to immigrants and
their integration into host countries.
Objectives
The study analyses the extent to which the adult socio-economic status
of Canadian born children of immigrants are tied to the status of their
parents.
Findings
The earnings of second-generation Canadians are only loosely tied to
the socio-economic status of their parents. On average, only about one-fifth
to one-quarter of any earnings advantage or disadvantage an immigrant
father may have is passed on to his son. This is no different than among
the Canadian population at large, and it is lower by half than in the
United States. Further, there is no correlation at all between paternal
earnings and the adult earnings of daughters.
Second-generation children in Canada are more educated and earn more
on average than Canadians of a similar age whose parents were both born
in Canada, according to the study. Except for those whose fathers were
from the Caribbean, Central and South America, and Oceania, they also
had higher weekly earnings. The earnings advantage was about 6%, except
for those from the traditional source countries, where it was more than
twice as great at 14%.
Data sources: Censuses of 1981 and 2001.
View
the article in the Daily about this publication.
View
the full publication.
You need to use the free Adobe Reader to view PDF documents. To view (open) these files, simply click on the link. To download (save) them, right-click on the link. Note that if you are using Internet Explorer or AOL, PDF documents sometimes do not open properly. See Troubleshooting PDFs. PDF documents may not be accessible by some devices. For more information, visit the Adobe website or contact us for assistance.
