Detalles del documento

When foreign-born workers enter the labour force, three outcomes are possible. Canadian-born workers can be displaced from their jobs or their wages suppressed or both. Previous Canadian research on the labour market performance of immigrants has focused primarily on the unemployment effects. This thesis in contrast, focuses on the impact of foreign-born labour on the wages of Canadians and other immigrant cohorts, circa 1988-1990. Specifically, this thesis had four main objectives. Firstly, a new methodology developed by Suen which uses age-cohorts, was employed to model the wage impacts of foreign-born labour. The novelty of Suen's approach amongst others, includes the resolution of the endogeneity problem caused by the possibility of immigrants self-selecting into cities with higher wages. Suen's methodology also allows an indirect test of the Foot-Stoffman hypothesis regarding the competition between the boom and echo generations and their attendant impact on wages. Secondly, an empirical analysis of foreign-born wage impacts is tested by industry using a panel analysis. Thirdly, this thesis investigated the substitution and complementarity relationships between new foreign-born, old foreign-born and Canadian-born workers as labour inputs in a generalized Leontief production function. This exercise was also extended to investigate the substitution and complementarity relationships amongst different occupational groups. Finally the role of institutions, specifically unions, and how they affected the wage gap between foreign-born and Canadian-born workers was also examined. The main findings were as follows. A simulation exercise under the estimated Suen's model suggests that a 20% increase in immigration levels has an insignificant impact on native-born wages economy-wide. Also, the Foot-Stoffman hypothesis was not borne out by the data. Furthermore, evidence of wage suppression was observed in the primary, communication and utilities, transportation and construction industries using the total sample. But there were variations across gender lines. Finally, increased unionization led to a wage gap in favour of Canadian-born workers and varied across white collar and blue collar jobs and public/private sectors. Specifically, the blue collar unions appeared to be more discriminatory and the wage-gap in favour of Canadian-born workers was larger in the public sector.