Ravi Pendakur

The Colour of Money: Earnings Differentials Among Ethnic Groups in Canada

The literature on ethnically based earnings differentials in Canada has focused on differences either between whites and visible minorities or between particular ethnic groups. In this paper, the authors examine both earnings differentials between whites and visible minorities, and earnings differentials within the white and visible-minority groupings. Among both men and women they find substantial earnings differentials both between and within the white and visible-minority groupings. Differentials between whites and visible minorities suggest that the visible-minority category is a useful indicator of economic discrimination. Differentials within these groupings, however, suggest that it is only a rough indicator.

Language as both human capital and ethnicity

In this study, we estimate earnings differentials for knowledge of thirteen minority languages in Canadas three largest urban areas. We find that conditional on knowledge of a majority language, knowledge of a minority language is associated with lower earnings. However, the negative differential diminishes for those languages with large local populations. This suggests a positive human capital effect which is for the most part swamped by a negative factor. We argue that this factor is a reflection of ethnicity operating either through ethnolinguistic labor market enclaves or labor market discrimination against minorities.

Immigration, labor force integration and the pursuit of self-employment

Using correspondence analysis, we look at age-education cohorts of male immigrants who arrived in Canada between 1945 and 1961 and compare them to similar age-education groups of Canadian-born males in order to examine shifts in employment patterns across four census periods. We find that immigrants with low levels of schooling consistently had higher rates of self-employment than similar groups of Canadian-born males, and the longer they stayed in Canada, the more likely they were to become self-employed. We posit that the pursuit of self-employment may be tied to the existence of a segmented labor market, particularly for immigrants with low and moderate levels of schooling.

Social Capital, Labour Markets, and Job-Finding in Urban and Rural Regions: comparing paths to employment in prosperous cities and stressed rural communities in Canada

This paper compares paths to employment (job-finding) in prosperous cities and economically-stressed rural communities in Canada. Since the pioneering work of Mark Granovetter (1973; 1974), sociologists have investigated the role of social capital in job-finding (specifically, the use of strong and weak social ties to find out about employment opportunities). To date, however, there have been few direct comparisons of job-finding in urban and rural settings (see Lindsay et al., 2005; Wahba and Zenou, 2005). Using data from two major surveys and a qualitative interview project, we uncover several important differences in urban and rural paths to employment. First, we find that both strong and weak ties are used more frequently by rural residents to find a job, while city-dwellers rely more often on formal or impersonal means. Second, we find much stronger evidence of differentiation within rural regions. Long-time rural residents are much more likely to use strong and weak ties to find employment than are newcomers. However, rural residents who used weak ties as paths to employment have significantly lower incomes. None of these patterns are evident in the cities. Together, these findings lead us to conclude that job-finding in rural settings is strongly affected by constraints – in the labour market and in social capital resources – that are not present in cities.

Aboriginal Income Disparity in Canada

Dans cet article, nous analysons les écarts de rémunérations et de revenus entre les Autochtones et les autres Canadiens nés au pays, de 1995 à 2005. Nous observons que, chez les personnes ayant des caractéristiques identiques (l’âge et le degré de scolarité, par exemple), la rémunération et les revenus des Autochtones sont largement inférieurs à ceux des autres travailleurs canadiens. Nous estimons que cet écart est de 10 % à 20 % chez les femmes, et de 20 % à 50 % chez les hommes. Parmi les Autochtones, ce sont les Indiens inscrits qui ont les revenus les plus bas, suivis des personnes qui se déclarent d’identité autochtone ; les personnes d’ascendance autochtone, mais ne faisant pas partie des deux groupes précédents, sont celles qui ont les meilleurs revenus.

Social capital and voting participation of immigrants and minorities in Canada

Abstract Using the social capital literature as a base, we explore the impact of interaction with others on voter participation with particular emphasis on exploring the differences between Canadian-born majority and minority residents. We use the 2002 wave of the Equality Security Community survey to explore the relationship between voting and personal characteristics, work characteristics, social capital attributes and ethnic characteristics. We find that the odds of voting are largely a product of socio-demographic and social capital attributes. The impact of immigration and ethnicity is largely overridden. This suggests that it is not the minority attribute that impacts voting. Rather it is age, level of schooling and level of civic engagement which affects the probability of voting, both federal and provincial.

Voting and Social Inclusion in Sweden

Three decades ago, Sweden extended municipal and provincial voting privileges to non-citizen residents arguing that it would increase political influence, interest and self-esteem among foreign citizens. The aim of this paper is to explore the act of voting as a measure of social inclusion by comparing voting propensities of immigrants (people born outside Sweden), their descendants (born in Sweden) and native Swedish citizens (those who have citizenship through jus sanguine) while controlling for a range of socio-economic, demographic characteristics, contextual factors and a set of “hard” and “soft” social inclusion related variables. In particular we focus on the impact of citizenship acquisition -- does the symbolic act of attaining citizenship result in increased voting participation on the part of Swedish residents who are not citizens by birth. We use the Swedish 2006 electoral survey matched to registry data from Statistics Sweden to assess the correlates of voting by Swedish-born and immigrant residents. Using instrumental variable regressions we estimate the impact of citizenship acquisition. We find that acquisition of citizenship makes a real difference to the probability of voting. Immigrants who naturalise are in general far more likely to vote than those who do not.

The Labour Market Integration of Refugee and Family Reunion Immigrants: A Comparison of Outcomes in Canada and Sweden

This paper assesses the employment and earnings trajectories of refugee and family reunion category immigrants in Canada and Sweden using two national level sources of data. The Canadian Immigration Database (IMDB) is a file that links the intake record of post-1979 immigrants with annual taxation records. The 2007 Swedish Register Data includes information on all legal permanent residents. Using standard regression methods, we compare labour force outcomes of age–sex–schooling–place of birth cohorts looking specifically at non-economic (family reunion and refugee intake) immigrants from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and the former Yugoslavia. We find that the employment and earning trajectories of the selected non-economic migrant groups are quite similar in the two host countries, although earnings are higher in Canada than in Sweden.

Voting and Social Inclusion

Three decades ago, Sweden extended municipal and provincial voting privileges to non-citizen residents arguing that it would increase political influence, interest and self-esteem among foreign citizens. The aim of this paper is to explore the act of voting as a measure of social inclusion by comparing voting propensities of immigrants (people born outside Sweden), their descendants (born in Sweden) and native Swedish citizens (those who have citizenship through jus sanguine) while controlling for a range of socio-economic, demographic characteristics, contextual factors and a set of “hard” and “soft” social inclusion related variables. In particular we focus on the impact of citizenship acquisition -- does the symbolic act of attaining citizenship result in increased voting participation on the part of Swedish residents who are not citizens by birth. We use the Swedish 2006 electoral survey matched to registry data from Statistics Sweden to assess the correlates of voting by Swedish-born and immigrant residents. Using instrumental variable regressions we estimate the impact of citizenship acquisition. We find that acquisition of citizenship makes a real difference to the probability of voting. Immigrants who naturalise are in general far more likely to vote than those who do not.

Recreational Participation among Ethnic Minorities and Immigrants in Canada and the Netherlands

Abstract In this paper, we compare the community engagement of minorities as measured by group recreational activity in Canada and the Netherlands—two countries with high immigration intake and high levels of ethnocultural diversity. Using logistic regression, we ask questions concerning the determinants of recreational participation, focussing on the degree to which differences are a product of minority status or of more general socioeconomic status. We also compare rates of participation in the two countries to see if there is an underlying difference, which can be explained by socioeconomic and demographic status. We find that sociodemographic characteristics are generally much stronger predictors of participation than characteristics associated with minority status, regardless of country.