Immigrant Benefit Receipt Revisited: Sensitivity to the Choice of Survey Years and Model Specification

Baker and Benjamin (1995) analyse the receipt of unemployment insurance by immigrant men using two years of the Canadian Survey of Consumer Finances. This study replicates their research on 13 of the annual surveys. Estimates are found to be sensitive to the choice of survey years. Furthermore, the standard fixed effects model of assimilation is rejected when tested against a model that allows for separate year-since-migration effects by arrival cohort. Estimates from the more general model do not indicate higher incidence of benefit receipt, ceteris paribus, among more recent cohorts or that immigrants assimilate toward greater receipt of benefits.