Mandatory Retirement Rules and the Retirement Decisions of University Professors in Canada

We examine the impact of mandatory retirement on the retirement decisions of professors in Canada using administrative data. We find that the age distributions of professors at universities without mandatory retirement and those at universities with mandatory retirement at age 65 have diverged over time with a higher fraction of professors over the age of 65 being at universities without mandatory retirement. Estimation of a discrete time hazard model indicates that faculty members at universities with mandatory retirement at age 65 have exit rates at age 65 that are around 30 to 36 percentage points higher than those of their counterparts at universities without mandatory retirement. Similar results are found for both men and women; however, the magnitude of this effect is somewhat smaller for women.University, Faculty, Retirement

Toward Improving Canada's Skilled Immigration Policy: An Evaluation Approach

Economic Growth and innovation, Canada, immigration, skilled immigration, point system

Incidence and Returns to Apprenticeship Training in Canada: the Role of Family Background and Immigrant Status

Immigrant men and women in Canada from recent arrival cohorts have especially low rates of having an apprenticeship credential when compared to either their counterparts from earlier arrival cohorts or the Canadian born. Among the native born, a second generation man is more likely to have completed an apprenticeship if his father’s generation of immigrant men in Canada (from the same source country) have a high probability of apprenticeship completion. The same effect is present for first generation men who arrived in Canada as children. However, this effect is not found for either first generation or second generation women. An analysis of earnings indicates a strong wage return from the completion of an apprenticeship in Canada is found for men. However, women who have completed an apprenticeship in Canada actually have lower weekly earnings than women with only a high school diploma. The empirical results suggest that the increased emphasis on university education in the selection of economic immigrants is creating an imbalance between the supply of both first and second generation immigrants with an apprenticeship, and the demand for workers with these credentials.Apprenticeships, Education, Immigration, and Second Generation

Consumption and Income Inequality in Australia

It has been argued that consumption is a more appropriate measure of household wellbeing than income or earnings. Using four Household Expenditures Surveys collected by the Australian Bureau of Statistics between 1975 and 1993, we examine trends in consumption inequality among Australian households and compare consumption inequality with income inequality. We find that consumption is much more equal than income. Further, while both income and consumption inequality rose by statistically and economically significant amounts over the period covered by our survey, consumption inequality rose by much less. For example, the Gini coefficient for equivalent gross income inequality rose by 0.043 (17%) while the Gini coefficient for equivalent nondurable consumption rose by 0.019 (9%). We discuss possible interpretations of these differences. Through a series of specification checks we are able to rule out several ways in which the result might be spurious, or an artifact of our methodological choices. One interpretation of the results is that some income inequality in Australia reflects transitory fluctuations which households can smooth, and that some of the growth in income inequality over the study period reflects an increase in these transitory fluctuations.

The Evolution of Male-Female Wages Differentials in Canadian Universities: 1970-2001

In this paper, we use a unique data set containing detailed information on all full-time teachers at Canadian universities over the period 1970 through 2001. The individual level data are collected by Statistics Canada from all universities in Canada and are used to analyze the evolution of male-female wage differentials of professors in Canadian universities. The long time series aspect of this data source along with the detailed administrative information allow us to provide a more complete and more accurate portrait of the wage gap than is available in most other studies. The results of a cohort-based analysis indicate that the male salary advantage among university faculty has declined for more recent birth cohorts. This has been driven not so much by an increase in the real salaries of female professors but from a cross cohort decline in the earnings of male professors and the fact that female professors have not experienced a similar cross cohort decline. Also important to note is the fact that the differences across cohorts appear to be permanent. There is no clear pattern of changes in these cohort differences with age.gender, earnings, Canada, professors, faculty

Demographic Trends and Consumption Inequality in Australia 1975-1993

We examine trends in consumption inequality among Australian households using the Australian Bureau of Statistics Household Expenditures Surveys collected over the period 1975 to 1993. We find that consumption is much more equal than income and that both income and consumption inequality rose by significant amounts over the period. However, consumption inequality rose by much less (the Gini coefficient for income inequality rose by 17% while that for nondurable consumption rose by 9%). We then examine the effects of demographic trends, specifically population ageing and changing family structures, and find they account for only a minor fraction in the overall growth in economic inequality.

Improving Canada's Immigration Policy

As labour markets change, the question arises whether Canada’s immigration policy – and our “point system” in particular – is doing a good job of identifying potential immigrants who will fare well on arrival in Canada.economic growth and innovation, immigration point system, Canadian immigration policy

Immigrant Selection Systems and Occupational Outcomes of International Medical Graduates in Canada and the United States

We analyze the process of immigrant selection and occupational outcomes of International Medical Graduates (IMGs) in the US and Canada. We extend the IMG relicensing model of Kugler and Sauer (2005) to incorporate two different approaches to immigrant selection: employer nomination systems and point systems. Analysis of the model indicates that point systems can allow IMGs to immigrate who would be unable to gain entry to the receiving country under an employer nomination system and who are subsequently unable to relicense and work as physicians in the receiving country. We apply the model to the case of IMGs migrating to the US and Canada since the 1960s and evaluate the empirical predictions from the model based on an analysis of the occupational outcomes of IMGs in Canada (where a point system has been in place) and in the US (where IMGs enter through employer nomination). In Canada, IMGs are less likely to be employed as a physician than are IMGs in the US and a large percentage of the IMGs in Canada either find work in lower skill occupations or are not employed. The empirical findings are consistent with our hypotheses based on the theoretical framework on the effects of immigrant selection systems on the probability of working as a physician in the two countries.physicians, immigration, occupation, skills, human capital

Impacts of the Point System and Immigration Policy Levers on Skill Characteristics of Canadian Immigrants

This paper examines how changes in immigration policy levers actually affect the skill characteristics of immigrant arrivals using a unique Canadian immigrant landings database. We first review the Canadian experience with a point system as part of its immigrant policy. Section III of the paper describes some overall patterns of immigrant arrivals since 1980. Section IV identifies some relevant hypotheses on the possible effects on immigrant skill characteristics of the total immigration rate, the point system weights and immigrant class weights. The "skill" admissions examined are level of education, age, and fluency in either English or French. Regressions are then used to test the hypotheses from Canadian landings data. It is found that (i) the larger the inflow rate of immigrants the lower the average skill level of the arrivals; (ii) increasing the proportion of skill-evaluated immigrants raises average skill levels; (iii) increasing point system weights on a specific skill dimension indeed has the intended effect of raising average skill levels in this dimension among arriving principal applicants; and (iv) increasing the proportion of skill-evaluated immigrants appears to have the strongest effects among the immigration policy levers.immigration policy, points system, Canadian immigration

Does the Family Investment Hypothesis Explain Immigrant Labor Market Activity?

No abstract.