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February 27, 2017STUDY: LABOUR MARKET OUTCOMES OF IMMIGRANT WOMEN WHO ARRIVE AS DEPENDANTS OF ECONOMIC CLASS IMMIGRANTS Today, Statistics Canada released a study on the labour market outcomes of immigrant women who arrive in Canada as spouses of economic class immigrants. The study used data from the linked 2011 National Household Survey and the Immigrant Landing File database to show that immigrant women who arrive as the spouse of economic class immigrants have better labour market outcomes than those that arrive as family class immigrants and that this is accounted for mainly by their higher education and knowledge of official languages.
The study finds that this is related to a high degree of positive assortative mating - meaning that economic class immigrants, who are selected for characteristics like education and knowledge of official languages, are more likely to be married to someone with similar characteristics. These results suggest that economic immigration programs, which select immigrants based on their human capital, also indirectly selected immigrant spouses with higher levels of human capital and labour market involvement.
Labour Market Outcomes
In 2010, immigrant women who had arrived in Canada as the spouse of an economic class immigrant were more likely to have been employed at some point that year and had higher average employment incomes compared to married immigrant women who had arrive in the family class. Among the former, 73.8 per cent has been employed at some point during 2010, with an average weekly employment income of $829. The latter were less likely to be employed - 65.8 per cent had been employed at some point that year - and had lower average weekly employment income of $742.
Education and Official Languages
The study finds that the observed differences in labour market outcomes can be explained mainly by differences in the respondents education level and knowledge of official languages and it attributes these differences to a phenomenon called assortative mating. Economic class immigrants are selected on the basis of their human capital, favouring among other things their education level and their knowledge of official languages. Only the principal applicant is judged on these criteria, while their spouse and dependants are not. In most cases, the principal applicant is a man. The study found that the principal applicants, if married at the time of arrival, were highly likely to be married to individuals were similar levels of education and knowledge of official languages.
In contrast, family class immigrants are selected based on their familial relationship with existing Canadian citizens, without any screening for human capital of the immigrants or their existing Canadian family members.
Almost three quarters (73.4 per cent) of female spouses of economic class principal applicants were found to have some form of postsecondary education, compared to just under half (47.8 per cent) of married women in the family class.
69.6 per cent of female spouses of economic class principal applicants reported either having knowledge of an official language or having an official language as a mother tongue. Among married women in the family class that number was 60.6 per cent.
Source: Statistics Canada - Labour Market Outcomes of Immigrant Women Who Arrive as Dependants of Economic Immigrant Principal Applicants
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