title: Immigrant employment and earnings growth in Canada and the USA: evidence from longitudinal data.
abstract: We study the short-term trajectories of employment, hours worked, and real wages of immigrants in Canada and the U.S. using nationally representative longitudinal datasets covering 1996-2008. Models with person fixed effects show that on average immigrant men in Canada do not experience any relative growth in these three outcomes compared to men born in Canada. Immigrant men in the U.S., on the other hand, experience positive annual growth in all three domains relative to U.S. born men. This difference is largely on account of low-educated immigrant men, who experience faster or longer periods of relative growth in employment and wages in the U.S. than in Canada. We further compare longitudinal and cross-sectional trajectories and find that the latter over-estimate wage growth of earlier arrivals, presumably reflecting selective return migration.
authors.affiliation: Columbia University, 1255 Amsterdam Avenue Room 917, New York, NY 10027.
authors.forename: Neeraj
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kaushal
authors.affiliation: Columbia University, 606 West 122nd Street, 614 Knox, New York, NY 10027.
authors.forename: Yao
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.affiliation: McGill University, Leacock Building, 855 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal, Quebec H3A 2T7, Canada.
authors.forename: Nicole
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Denier
authors.affiliation: The University of Hong Kong, Pok Fu Lam, Hong Kong.
authors.forename: Julia Shu-Huah
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: University of Texas, 2225 Speedway Stop C3100, Austin, TX 78712-1690.
authors.forename: Stephen J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Trejo
keywords: Canadian immigrants; Immigration; U.S. immigrants; comparative study; economic assimilation; employment; longitudinal data; wages