The Market WorthThe Market of Worth Immigrants’ of Immigrants’ Educational Credentials 23 Educational Credentials PETER S. LI Department of Sociology and Prairie Centre of Excellence for Research on Immigration and Integration University of Saskatchewan Bien que les universitaires et les législateurs s’intéressent aux diplômes des immigrés, la valeur exacte de ces diplômes sur le marché est incertaine. Notre étude utilise les microdonnées du Recensement Canadien de 1996 pour comparer les salaires de quatre groupes: les diplômés natifs du Canada; les immigrés possé- dant des diplômes canadiens; les immigrés possédant des diplômes d’origines diverses; les immigrés possé- dant des diplômes étrangers. Il apparaît que les diplômes des immigrés sont pénalisés par rapport à ceux des Canadiens de naissance et que la possession d’un diplôme étranger est plus défavorable aux minorités visibles, aux immigrés, hommes et femmes, qu’aux Canadiens de race blanche; il apparaît également que le genre et la race des diplômés font aussi l’objet d’une évaluation. L’adoption de politiques pour que soient reconnus les diplômes étrangers remédiera à certaines disparités salariales, mais les inégalités fondées sur le genre et la race risquent fort de subsister. Despite academic and policy interests on immigrants’ credentials, their precise market worth is unclear. This study uses the 1996 Canadian Census microdata to compare the earnings for four groups: native-born Canadian degree-holders; immigrant Canadian degree-holders; immigrant mixed education degree-holders; and immigrant foreign degree-holders. The findings indicate that immigrants’ credentials carry a penalty compared to those of native-born Canadians, and that a foreign degree affects visible-minority immigrants, women and men, more adversely than white Canadians; as well, credential holders’ gender and race are also being evaluated. Policies to recognize foreign credentials will bridge some income disparities, but inequality premised upon gender and race will likely remain. uch has been written about the problem of dis- grants’ credentials as equivalent to those of native- Mcounting immigrants’ credentials in Canada. born Canadians. Thus, the earnings for some immi- Essentially, the problem has to do with immigrants’ grants in the Canadian labour market are lower than educational experiences acquired outside Canada not native-born Canadians not necessarily as a result of being fully recognized as equal to those of native- their having less human capital, but of lower mar- born Canadians, in terms of human capital quality ket value being attached to immigrants’ educational and accreditation standing. However, differences qualifications that are potentially equivalent or com- between the quality of credentials between immi- parable to those of native-born Canadians. grants and native-born Canadians are often pre- sumed, but employers and regulatory agencies tend Despite the academic and policy interests on im- to be reluctant to grant full recognition to immi- migrants’ educational experiences, little has been CANADIAN PUBLIC POLICY – ANALYSE DE POLITIQUES, VOL. XXVII, NO. 1 2001 24 Peter S. Li done to actually estimate the market worth of im- Reitz and Breton (1994, p. 114), whose analysis of migrants’ credentials in relation to those of native- the 1986 Census showed that black and Asian im- born Canadians. The obvious difficulty has to do migrant men and women earned less than white male with the lack of data in Canadian censuses concern- and female immigrants respectively, after differ- ing the type of educational credentials held by im- ences in education and occupation were taken into migrants, in terms of whether they are acquired in account. A more recent study using the 1996 Cen- Canada or abroad. The purpose of this paper is to sus also showed that immigrant men and women had make use of the Public Use Microdata File on Indi- net earnings lower than native-born men after con- viduals of the 1996 Census of Canada to estimate trolling for urban size and other individual and mar- the type of degree-holders among immigrants, and ket characteristics, and that immigrants of visible to assess the market worth of immigrant degree- minority origin tended to be further disadvantaged holders as compared to native-born Canadian than immigrants not of visible minority origin (Li degree-holders. 2000). Several factors have been identified as creating CLAIMS ABOUT IMMIGANTS’ CREDENTIALS barriers of employment and social mobility for im- migrants, especially for those from non-European The literature has suggested that the life chances origins. These factors include the difficulty faced for immigrants and native-born Canadians are not by some immigrants in having their credentials fully the same, especially for non-white immigrants from recognized in Canada (McDade 1988), and employ- Asian and African countries whose earnings tend to ment discrimination against immigrants with iden- be lower than white immigrants from Europe (Abella tifiable linguistic and racial features (Henry and 1984; Li 2000; Reitz and Breton 1994; Satzewich Ginzberg 1985; Henry 1989; Scassa 1994). and Li 1987). Several studies using different data have made this claim. An analysis of longitudinal Trovato and Grindstaff (1986) studied immigrant data collected by the Department of Manpower and women who were 30 years old in the 1981 Census, Immigration on new immigrants arriving in Canada and compared the economic status of those who between 1969 and 1971 found the rankings of im- came to Canada as children, adolescents, and adults migrant groups by occupational status and employ- to that of Canadian-born women of the same age. ment income persisted over a three-year period, with The findings indicate that among the never married immigrants from European countries and the United women, the ones who immigrated to Canada in their States having an advantage and with immigrants adulthood and therefore most likely to have com- from non-white source countries having a disadvan- pleted their education outside Canada, were more tage that can be attributed to immigrants’ origin likely to have completed university, but were less (Satzewich and Li 1987). Furthermore, despite a likely to be in the higher income group and more narrowing of occupational status over time among likely to be in the lower end of the occupational immigrants from different countries of origin, the structure. Trovato and Grindstaff (ibid.) suggested income disparity widened even after adjusting for three factors to explain the findings: the problem of differences in other variables (ibid.). A study based full recognition of foreign credentials, the short resi- on the 1981 Census revealed that after adjusting for dency of less than ten years in Canada, and the prob- differences in age and education, immigrant men and lem of possible discrimination in the job market. women from Europe and the US had higher employ- ment income than immigrants of the same gender The point about foreign credentials was also made group from Asia and Africa (Beaujot, Basavarajappa by Basavarajappa and Verma (1985), who, based on and Verma 1988). Similar findings were reported by their analysis of Asian immigrants in Canada in the CANADIAN PUBLIC POLICY – ANALYSE DE POLITIQUES, VOL. XXVII, NO. 1 2001 The Market Worth of Immigrants’ Educational Credentials 25 1981 Census, argued that the insistence by employ- Despite the popular claim that the earnings of ers on having Canadian experience as a condition immigrants are being affected by foreign creden- of employment and the problem of foreign creden- tials, such earning disadvantage can in fact derive tials not being fully recognized would explain why from several confounding sources. When holders of Asian immigrants were less likely to be in profes- foreign credentials experience differential treat- sional and managerial jobs, despite their relatively ments in the Canadian labour market, it is often not high educational attainment. Rajagopal (1990) pro- clear whether it is credentials, or racial origin, or duced data from the 1986 Census to indicate that other features that are being disadvantaged. For ex- although Indo-Canadians in Ontario were more ample, Scassa (1994) has argued that non-native likely than the general population in Toronto to have speakers of the dominant language encounter dis- completed university, Indo-Canadians in Toronto crimination in employment and in access to services had a lower annual income level than immigrants on the basis of their language characteristics, and and non-immigrants in Toronto. Rajagopal (1990) that their lack of fluency, their accent of speech, and also suggested that one of the barriers had to do with their deviations from the language standard of the Indo-Canadians’ foreign credentials being highly dominant group can be used as bases of unfavour- discounted or not recognized by business and edu- able treatment, and as surrogates of racial discrimi- cational institutions, and evaluators using prejudi- nation. Ethnographic accounts by immigrant women cial opinions and not objective criteria in assessing in Fredericton also indicated that their accent and Indian applicants. colour set them apart from mainstream society, despite their ability to speak English (Miedema and McDade (1988) has identified several barriers to Nason-Clark 1989). Several empirical studies of hiring employment for immigrants related to their creden- practices have also indicated that racial minority job- tials