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Most immigrants to Canada settle in Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal. What effect does this choice of location have on their economic well-being?
Are there differences in economic well-being between immigrants in these "gateway cities" and in other Canadian cities?
The Prairie Centre for Excellence in Research on Immigration and Integration (PCERII) and Alberta Empoyment, Immigration, and Industry hosted a lecture by Professor Michael Haan of the University of Alberta on his recent work regarding economic well-being for immigrants and its correlation to location.
His research examines, in part, an assertion made by former Minister of Immigration and Citizenship Monte Solberg that immigrants would do better economically if they chose to locate to non-gateway cities in Canada – gateway cities being Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal. Using data from the 2001 Census, Michael Haan’s research examines the impact of location choice on three indicators of economic well-being: employment status, income, and employment mismatch.
Haan explained that it’s important to keep in mind the limitations of a large, quantitative study such as his. In order to make the study workable, he had to narrow down the definitions of economic well-being as follows:
- Employment status refers to whether or not the individual is employed, and doesn’t factor in whether their work is full time, part time, contract, or temporary.
- Income refers to the income of the highest income earner in a household. So, in households where there are multiple income-earners, those earning lower levels aren’t included.
- Employment mismatch describes the situation when a person with a Bachelor’s degree is working in a position in which the qualification for employment is a high school diploma. Under this definition, a person with a PhD working in a position in which the qualification is a Bachelor’s degree would not be considered to be experiencing employment mismatch.
The results show that while there are experienced differences between economic well-being in gateway and non-gateway cities, there are no statistically significant differences in employment status and income, and only a small statistically significant difference in employment mismatch (4%).
Haan’s research demonstrates that in terms of economics, it may be slightly easier for immigrants outside of Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. One reason that this may be the case is because of an “unobserved sorting mechanism”, that informally directs immigrants towards, or away from, certain destinations. For example, if you know that there is a large community of immigrants from your own home country or an extensive network of supports available in a particular Canadian city—likely one of the gateway cities—you are more likely to settle there. On the other hand, a concrete job offer to a non-gateway city may be incentive to settle there, despite the lack of community or support networks.
But Haan was quick to point out that the real differences in economic well-being are not those between immigrants in gateway and non-gateway cities, they are the differences between immigrants and Canadian-born citizens. Long term trends of immigrant economic well-being include continually declining earnings, growing rates of non-standard employment, lower rates of entry-level wealth, and a much longer wait before earnings rates hit the level of Canadian-born citizens.
In the question and answer period that followed Haan’s presentation, participants expressed interest in a number of implications and future directions for this type of research:
- How would this type of analysis be different if it were able to account for differences in regional labour markets (for example, what are the differences in economic well-being for immigrants who settle in Quebec as compared to Alberta)?
- What happens to economic well-being for immigrants who first come to Canada as temporary workers who later become permanent residents?
- Would there be greater differences between gateway and non-gateway cities if the definitions were different (for example, if it accounted for the differences between part-time and full-time work)?
- Immigration policy since the last census has increasingly been determined by individual provinces and decreasingly by the federal government. As these policies continue to shift, how does that affect immigrant economic well-being? What would the same study look like using 2006 Census data instead of 2001 Census data?
Michael Haan’s study, The Place of Place: Location and Immigrant Economic Wellbeing in Canada is forthcoming in 2009. PCERII has a wide variety of publications and working papers on related topics available on their website, http://pcerii.metropolis.net/.
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Thursday, 17 May 2012 
The ESPC is a member of the Edmonton Coalition on Housing and Homelessness (ECOHH). ECOHH sent out a three question survey related to housing security to each political party competing in the 2012 Alberta election. So far, the Progressive Conservatives (PC), the New Democratic Party (NDP), and the Alberta Party responded to ECOHH's questions. Below are their respective answers.
