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2005
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Background
When immigrants arrive in a new country, their ability to express themselves in the official language or languages of that country can have a major impact on how successfully they integrate. This ability is one of the main components of human capital, 1 and it is undeniably a major economic asset. Mastering the spoken language may make the difference when, for example, it comes to staying abreast of employment opportunities, learning how the labour market in a new country works or convincing one’s future employer of one’s skills. The ability to speak the language(s) of the host country is also important when an immigrant tries to socialize outside his/her ethnic community (a phenomenon known as bridging), thus creating a form of social capital 2 (Kunz, 2003).
Several studies have attempted to show how immigrants’ knowledge of the language(s) of the host country affects their earnings or their access to the labour market. The findings of these different studies are sometimes contradictory, with some showing that a relationship exists (Tainer, 1988; Chiswick and Miller, 1995; Chiswick and Miller, 1990; Dustmann and Fabbri, 2003) and others showing that the relationship is not significant or at least not direct (Lebeau and Renaud, 2002).
This study differs from previous ones in that it tries to verify whether knowledge of the official languages is related to the type of job held by immigrants, based on an examination of five characteristics used as potential indicators of what an “appropriate” job is. In fact, four years after their arrival in Canada, many immigrants stated that the worst difficulties they had faced since coming to Canada were finding an appropriate job (difficulty reported by 46% of immigrants) and having to cope with the language barrier (reported by 26% of immigrants). But what is the role of knowledge of the official languages with regard to the type of job obtained by new immigrants to Canada? The answer is important, since achieving a good match between an individual’s skills and his/her work is beneficial for both the individual and society.
Data source
The findings of this study are based on data from the third wave of Statistics Canada’s Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada (LSIC). This survey targets immigrants aged 15 and older who came to Canada between October 2000 and September 2001. The data from the third wave were obtained from 7,700 respondents who had also responded to the first two waves of the survey. The first wave interview took place six months after the immigrants’ arrival in Canada, the second wave interview took place two years after their arrival, and the interview for the third and final wave, four years after their arrival. For further information on this data source, see "Data quality, concepts and methodology — Data source " section.
The longitudinal data from this survey were used to evaluate the situation of the same group of immigrants at three points in time. When the sample size permits, results are also given for Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia.
It should be noted that knowledge of official languages is one of the selection criteria for principal applicants in the skilled worker category to gain admission to Canada. 3
Content of the report
This report is divided into four major sections. The first three sections examine different topics in order to lay the groundwork for the analytical portion of this study, contained in section 4 .
Section 1 of the report provides a basic profile of new immigrants during their first four years in Canada. Section 2 examines their knowledge of official languages (OLs), language training and the improvement of language skills observed over time. Section 3 briefly examines the situation of immigrants on the labour market six months, two years and four years after their arrival.
Section 4 of the report contains an in-depth analysis of the effect of knowledge of official languages on five job characteristics used as indicators of what might be an appropriate job. The goal here is to see to what extent immigrants’ ability to speak English and French six months, two years and four years after their arrival affects their chances of having an appropriate job.
