Postsecondary Fields of Study and the Canadian Labour Market Outcomes
of Immigrants and Non-Immigrants
by Arthur Sweetman and Stephan McBride
Business and Labour Market Analysis Division
Analytical Studies Branch research paper series, No. 233
Context
Education in Canada's federal system for economic (skilled) class
immigrant selection is treated as if it is homogeneous and only differs
in quantity. In contrast, some provinces differentiate it based on postsecondary
field of study.
Objectives
This study examines the association between post-secondary field of
study and earnings for immigrant and Canadian-born workers. It explores
the issue for each sex, and for two subgroups of immigrants depending
upon whether their education was obtained in Canada or elsewhere.
Findings
Overall, large differences in the distribution of fields of study are
observed between both immigrant groups and the Canadian born. For all
groups there are also substantial differences in earnings and social
benefit receipt across fields. On average, individuals in high earnings
fields, but at lower levels of education, have greater earnings than
those with higher levels of education in low earnings fields. This suggests
that viewing education strictly as a quantity, and ranking a college
diploma as worth fewer points than a university degree in the immigration
points system, ignores important and systematic heterogeneity across
fields.
Field of study is not observed to explain much of the earnings difference
between immigrants and the Canadian-born, though it is relatively more
important for males than females in doing so. Interestingly, while there
are a few exceptions, a general pattern is observed whereby the differences
between high- and low-earning fields are not as large for immigrants
as for the Canadian born. Similarly, social assistance receipt has smaller
variance across fields for immigrants than for the Canadian born. Nevertheless,
substantial inter-field differences are observed for each immigrant
group.
Data Sources: Census data: 1986, 1991 and 1996.
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