THE CHANGING LABOR-MARKET POSITION OF CANADIAN IMMIGRANTS

This paper uses pooled 1971, 1981, and 1986 Canadian census data to ev aluate the extent to which (1) the earnings of Canadian immigrants at the time of immigration fall short of the earnings of comparable Canad ian-born individuals, and (2) immigrants' earnings grow more rapidly o ver time than those of the Canadian born. Variations in the labour mar ket assimilation of immigrants according to their gender and country o f origin are also analysed. The results suggest that recent immigrant cohorts have had more difficulty being assimilated into the Canadian l abour market than earlier ones, an apparent consequence of recent chan ges in Canadian immigration policy, labour market discrimination again st visible minorities, and the prolonged recession of the early 1980s.