Naomi Lightman

Sorting or Shaping? The Gendered Economic Outcomes of Immigration Policy in Canada

Using a growth model analysis of Canadas Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada (LSIC), we establish a significant relationship between application status — i.e., the distinction in immigration policy between primary and secondary migrants — and individual wages. This relationship is associated with an earnings disadvantage for secondary migrants, who are disproportionately female. The disadvantage persists over time, even when individual human capital and personal characteristics, household context, and pre-existing differences in the relative employability of spouses are taken into account. We outline some possible explanations for this effect, as well as implications for immigration policy makers.

Situating secondary schooling in the transnational social field: contestation and conflict in Greater Toronto Area classrooms

ABSTRACT This article situates secondary schooling within the evolving transnational social field. Drawing on 43 interviews with teachers and former students with transnational connections in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), Canada, I examine how transnational practices and dispositions fit within existing curricular and pedagogical frameworks in secondary schools. It is suggested that the ‘ways of being’ and ‘ways of belonging’ for transnational students are in conflict with the teachers’ views on how students ought to act and feel within classroom settings. When transnational secondary students travel to their sending societies for ongoing periods, the data reveal disconnections at school that threaten the dominant classroom norms. When there is sustained direct contact with multiple countries, including both travel and new modes of communication, this may create knowledge and vivid experiences for transnational youth who are ‘betwixt and between’, but also leads to concerns by teachers about a ‘strategic’ use of Toronto-area schools and fears about ‘dual loyalties’. Finally, many of the transnational youth find their teachers’ assumptions of schooling superiority in the Global North to be sorely misdirected, and perhaps even harmful. These discordances highlight the existence of competing systems of capital within GTA classrooms.

Race, Language, or Length of Residency? Explaining Unequal Uptake of Government Pensions in Canada

ABSTRACT Canada’s old age security (OAS), a flat-benefit public pension, is internationally lauded as an accessible and effective safety net for seniors. This paper explores discrepancies in OAS uptake using Canadian Census data from 1996 to 2011. Our findings demonstrate disparities in OAS uptake based on immigration status, language proficiency, and visible minority status, disputing claims of “universal” OAS provision. Multivariate analyses confirm a strong “immigrant effect,” with being in Canada for 20 years or less leading to lower rates of OAS utilization. They also confirm that those not proficient in Canada’s official languages are less likely to receive OAS benefits. However, the influence of racialized minority status is found to be spurious; after controlling for immigration status and official language proficiency, many racialized minority senior groups have higher odds of receiving OAS than White Canadians. We conclude with a brief discussion of the tradeoffs involved in considering a potential removal of OAS eligibility barriers for immigrants in Canada.

Measuring economic exclusion for racialized minorities, immigrants and women in Canada: results from 2000 and 2010

ABSTRACT In this article, the authors examine patterns of economic exclusion in Canada’s labor market in 2000 and 2010. Using Canada’s Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics data, the authors devise a unique Economic Exclusion Index to capture disparities in income, employment precarity, and wealth. The authors find evidence of persistent disadvantage tied to immigrant status, race, and gender in Canada’s labor market; specifically, individuals identified as Black, South Asian and Arab, as well as recent immigrants and women, fare worst. The authors conclude that there is a need for structural changes that enable disadvantaged groups to move toward economic inclusion in Canada’s labor market.

The migrant in the market: Care penalties and immigration in eight liberal welfare regimes

This article disaggregates high- and low-status care work across eight liberal welfare regimes: Australia, Canada, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. Using Luxembourg Income Study data, descriptive and multivariate analyses provide support for a ‘migrant in the market’ model of employment, notwithstanding variation across countries. The data demonstrate a wage penalty in both high- and low-status care employment in several liberal welfare regimes, with the latter (service jobs in health, education and social work) more likely to be part-time and situated in the private sector. Migrant care workers are found to work disproportionately in low-status, low-wage types of care and, in some cases, to incur additional wage penalties compared to native-born care workers with equivalent human capital.