Task supply, wage earning, and segmentation among natives and two generations of immigrants in Canada

Abstract

ABSTRACT The different life paths of the generation following immigration have become a matter of public discussion and scholarly research in the past decades in many migrant-receiving countries. These differences would be key points for the immigration decision made by first-generation immigrants. This paper adopts a new perspective to study the differences in task supplies and economic status between natives and two generations of immigrants to see their different life paths. This paper estimates differences in task supply and earnings between natives and immigrants in 1970 and 2015, which are the beginning and end of the fifth (and current) wave of immigration to Canada. Furthermore, using a three-fold Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition, I link the average weekly wage of workers to their task productivity, and try to find the effects of the returns to tasks as well as different task supplies on the average wage gap between natives and immigrants. Finally, I use ordered probit and logit models to demonstrate and measure the significant effects of immigrant status on an employee’s labour market segment.