Barriers to Immigrant Success in Canada
High birthrate among immigrant women has implications for Canada
Todd, D. (2013). Vancouver Sun.
Immigrant women who have spent five years in Canada “have almost twice as many children of pre-school age (as) the average Canadian-born woman,” according to an extensive study by two noted economists.
There are major birthrate differences depending on newcomers’ country of origin: The women who have the highest birthrates tend to be from Africa, Pakistan and India. The women who have the lowest birthrates tend to be from Europe, the U.S. and East Asia.
The study by Ferrer and Adsera -- which explores how childbirth rates affect a family’s “economic assimilation” and other aspects of integration -- is important for Canada and especially Metro Vancouver, where roughly 45 per cent of residents are immigrants, mostly from South Asia and East Asia.
The study goes into detail about the child-birth patterns of the roughly 125,000 women who arrive each year in Canada, which has the highest per-capita immigration rate of any major country.
“African and South Asian women show a substantially higher fraction of children under five than similar native-born women,” write Ferrer and Adsera. They note that women from the Middle East quickly start out having babies after arriving in Canada, but eventually slow down to closer to the national norm.
In contrast, there is a relatively low fertility rate among women who arrive from Europe, the U.S. and the countries of East Asia, such as China, South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
The authors speculate that women between ages 18 and 45 from European and East Asian countries may worry more about what economists call the “opportunity costs of children,” since having children often reduces chances to increase income.
The authors surmise that women from Europe, China and other East Asian countries could place a different value on the “two-earner family model” than those from India, Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere.
The findings of Ferrer and Adsera dovetail with earlier data from Statistics Canada, which showed that, based on ethnicity, the lowest fertility rates in Canada are among white, Chinese and South Korean women, all of whom fall below the national birthrate average of 1.6 babies per woman.
In addition, a 2006 Statistics Canada database that correlated birth rates with religion supports the two economists’ observation that birth rates tend to be higher among newcomers from South Asia, which is predominantly Hindu and Muslim as well as the home to a large Sikh population.
The earlier StatsCan survey showed that Muslim women in Canada have 2.4 babies per woman on average, Hindu women deliver 2.0 babies and Sikh women have 1.8 babies.
Christian women in Canada, meanwhile, give birth to an average of 1.5 children, roughly the same rate as women who have no religion. The least fertile women in the country, by religion, are Buddhists (who are most likely to have East Asian origins).
Why does these birth data matter to Canada? Ferrer and Adsera firmly maintain women’s birthrates have powerful effects on how well immigrant families integrate, economically and otherwise, into their new chosen country.
“The ability to forecast population growth, demand for public services or even labour supply increasingly requires considering immigrant fertility.”
McMahon, T. (2013). MacLeans.
For a time, Sanjay Mavinkurve and wife Samvita Padukone were held up as poster children for Canada’s open and flexible immigration system, long touted for the benefits it brings to both the country and its newcomers. When the couple married in 2008, Mavinkurve—born in India, raised in Saudi Arabia and trained at Harvard University—was living in Silicon Valley, where he led a team of engineers designing Google maps for mobile phones. Padukone was working in finance at Singapore’s largest investment bank. Mavinkurve’s temporary U.S. work visa didn’t allow his wife to work in the States. So Google arranged to transfer Mavinkurve to the company’s office in Toronto, where Padukone, with degrees in engineering and finance and experience in international banking, hoped to land a job.
In the end, their story turned out to be less a picture of the Canadian dream than an image of the ugly reality facing so many Canadian immigrants. Padukone struggled to find a job. Calls to employers went unreturned or recruiters told her she would need Canadian work experience to qualify. With extended family already living in Canada, the couple expected a slow start, but was shocked by how difficult life here turned out to be. “I was trying to deny these thoughts in my head that my wife wasn’t facing these issues,” says Mavinkurve. “But then I’d see the taxi drivers with the Ph.D.s and the ads on TV saying, ‘hire a skilled immigrant.’ ”
In late 2009, the couple packed up and moved to Seattle, where Padukone, finally armed with a U.S. work permit, landed the first job she applied for: at Amazon’s head office. Their short time living in Canada taught the couple a lot about what it’s like to immigrate to Canada and, says Mavinkurve, it’s “not what any Canadian wants to hear.” “Canada is, by and large, not friendly to immigrants,” he says.
Canada’s “points system,” the first such system in the world, was designed to build a multicultural society based on selecting those with the kinds of broad, transferable skills that would ensure them long-term economic success. But in recent decades it has had the opposite effect. Even as Canada has worked diligently to attract the world’s most educated workers, the country has witnessed a dramatic decline in the economic welfare of its most skilled immigrants. It’s a decline other countries—nations far less welcoming to highly skilled imimigrants than Canada—have managed to avoid.
In 1970, men who immigrated to Canada earned about 85 per cent of the wages of Canadian-born workers, rising to 92 per cent after a decade in the country. By the late 1990s, they earned just 60 per cent, rising to 78 per cent after 15 years, according to Statistics Canada studies. These days, university-educated newcomers earn an average of 67 per cent of their Canadian-born, university-educated counterparts.
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Todd, D. (2013). Vancouver Sun.
More than 36 per cent of immigrants who have been in the country for less than five years live in poverty, according to the latest Canadian Labour Market Report. That compares to 25 per cent in the 1980s.“Increasing (immigrant) poverty is a tinderbox that can ultimately (descend) into social discontent,” write Peter Dungan of the University of Toronto, Tony Fang of York University and Morley Gunderson of the University of Toronto.
Poor immigrants could grow increasingly disenchanted because many were attracted to Canada by policies that give points “for skills and education, but such credentials are often not recognized,” says the report for the federally-funded Canadian Labour Market and Skills Researcher Network.
Two Canadian Labour Market Reports that show rising poverty among new immigrants, especially older ones, are being released the same month that a Bank of Montreal survey revealed 48 per cent of the country’s millionaires were either born outside Canada or had at least one parent who was.
The BMO survey found the proportion of first- and second-generation immigrants among “high-net-worth British Columbians” — defined as those with investable assets of $1 million or more — was 68 per cent, the highest in the country.
Another Labour Market study released this week found that immigrants who arrive after age 50 “often struggle in the Canadian labour market compared to both their native-born peers and their younger counterparts.”
Older immigrants have a great deal of difficulty getting their credentials accepted and building up either private or public pension plans in Canada, write economists Ted McDonald of the University of New Brunswick and Christopher Worswick of Ottawa’s Carleton University.
Older immigrants have a great deal of difficulty getting their credentials accepted and building up either private or public pension plans in Canada, write economists Ted McDonald of the University of New Brunswick and Christopher Worswick of Ottawa’s Carleton University.
“Income differentials are especially pronounced for older immigrants from non-traditional source countries (Africa, Asia and the Caribbean, according to Statistics Canada).”
Many older immigrants end up working well past normal retirement age.
While the earnings gap between the rich and the poor has been widening in general in Canada, that income gap is growing “even worse for immigrants, especially male immigrants,” Lemieux said.
Lemieux supports the Canadian government’s efforts to increasingly favour prospective immigrants who speak English or French well.
But better access to all kinds of less-expensive higher education, Lemieux emphasizes, is the main way to decreasing earning gaps among new immigrants and all Canadians.
Many older immigrants end up working well past normal retirement age.
While the earnings gap between the rich and the poor has been widening in general in Canada, that income gap is growing “even worse for immigrants, especially male immigrants,” Lemieux said.
Lemieux supports the Canadian government’s efforts to increasingly favour prospective immigrants who speak English or French well.
But better access to all kinds of less-expensive higher education, Lemieux emphasizes, is the main way to decreasing earning gaps among new immigrants and all Canadians.
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