Evidence of New Immigrant Assimilation in Canada

Previous studies of the labour market experience of male immigrants to Canada have uncovered two disturbing trends: declining entry earnings for successive new immigrant cohorts and low assimilation rates. These findings suggest that many of these cohorts may never assimilate. The 1991 Census provides a first look at the immigrant cohorts arriving in the 1980s. These immigrants appear to avoid the plight of their predecessors; entry earnings have stopped falling, and those immigrants arriving between 1981 and 1985 experienced a 17 per cent assimilation rate. I am unable to explain this turnaround based on the observable characteristics recorded in the census data.