Entry Earnings of Canada’s Immigrants over the Past Quarter Century: the Roles of Changing Characteristics and Returns to Skills

We examine whether the factors associated with the rise in the Canadian born - immigrant entry earnings gap played different roles in the 1980s, the 1990s, and the early 2000s. We find that for recent immigrant men, shifts in population characteristics had the most important effect in the 1980s when their earnings gap expanded the most, but this “compositional†effect diminished in the 1990s and early 2000s. The effect of changes in returns to Canadian experience and education was small for men, but stronger for women in all three periods. During the early 2000s the IT bust, combined with a heavy concentration of immigrants in IT-related occupations, was the primary explanation of the increase in their earnings gap. Furthermore, returns to foreign experience declined in the 1980s and 1990s, but recovered moderately in the early 2000s. In contrast, the relative return to immigrant education declined in the early 2000s.Immigrants, Entry Earnings, Decomposition, Canada

Double Andreev Reflections in Type-II Weyl Semimetal-Superconductor Junctions

We study the Andreev reflections (ARs) at the interface of the type-II Weyl semimetal-superconductor junctions and find double ARs when the superconductor is put in the Weyl semimetal band tilting direction, which is similar to the double reflections of light in anisotropic crystals. The directions of the double (retro and specular) ARs are symmetric about the normal due to the hyperboloidal Fermi surface near the Weyl nodes, but with different AR amplitudes depending on the direction and energy of the incident electron. When the normal direction of the Weyl semimetal-superconductor interface is changed from parallel to perpendicular with the tilt direction, the double ARs gradually evolve from one retro-AR and one specular AR, passing through double retro-ARs, one specular AR and one retro-AR, into one retro AR and one normal reflection, resulting in an anisotropic conductance which can be observed in experiments.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figure

Preparing for Success in Canada and the United States: the Determinants of Educational Attainment Among the Children of Immigrants

This paper reviews the recent research on the determinants of the educational attainment among the children of immigrants (the 2nd generation) in Canada and the United States. The focus is on the gap in educational attainment between the 2nd and 3rd-and-higher generations (the children of domestic born parents), as well as the intergenerational transmission of education between immigrants and their children. On average, the children of immigrants have educational levels significantly above their counterparts with domestic born parents in Canada. In the U.S., educational levels are roughly the same between these two groups. In both countries, conditional on the educational attainment of the parents and location of residence, the children of immigrants outperform the 3rd-and-higher generation in educational attainment. Parental education and urban location are major determinants of the gap in educational attainment between the children of immigrants and those of Canadian or American born parents. However, even after accounting for these and other demographic background variables, much of the positive gap between the 2nd and 3rd-and-higher generations remains in Canada. In Canada, parental education is less important as a determinant of educational attainment for the children in immigrant families than among those with Canadian-born parents. Less educated immigrant parents are more likely to see their children attain higher levels of education than are their Canadian-born counterparts. Outcomes vary significantly by ethnic/source region group in both countries. In the U.S., some 2nd generation ethnic/source region groups, such as those with Mexican, Puerto Rican, Central American backgrounds, have relatively low levels of education, even though conditional on background characteristics they outperform their 3rd-and-higher generation counterparts. In contrast, in Canada, children of the larger and increasingly numerically important immigrant groups (the Chinese, South Asians, Africans, etc) register superior educational attainment levels to those of the 3rd-and-higher generation. This result is partly related to the high levels of parental education and group-level “ethnic capital†among these immigrant groups.Second Generation, Children of Immigrants, Education, Canada, United States

Seeking Success in Canada and the United States: the Determinants of Labour Market Outcomes Among the Children of Immigrants

This paper reviews the recent research on labour market outcomes of the children of immigrants in Canada and the United States (i.e., the 2nd generation), and its determinants. The paper focuses on outcome gaps between the 2nd and third-and-higher generations, as well as the intergenerational transmission of earnings between immigrants (the first generation) and their children. Overall, in both Canada and the United States the labour market outcomes of the children of immigrants are positive. On average they have higher levels of education, and similar labour force participation rates and unemployment rates (no controls) as the third and higher generations (i.e. the children with native born parents). Furthermore, the children of immigrants tend to have higher earnings (unadjusted data). The 2nd generation is also more likely to be employed in professional occupations than the 3rd-and-higher generation, reflecting their higher average levels of education, particularly in Canada. However, after accounting for background characteristics, among racial minority groups in Canada the positive earnings gap turns negative. Regarding the determinants of aggregate outcomes, educational attainment may account for up to half of the (positive) earnings gap between the 2nd and third-and-higher generations. Other important determinants of the wage gap include location of residence and community size, ethnic group/source region background, the “degree of stickiness†in educational and earnings transmission between the 1st and 2nd generation, and “ethnic capitalâ€. In both Canada and the United States there are large differences in outcomes by source region/ethnic group background. The U.S the sociological literature in particular focuses on possible “downward assimilation†among children of immigrants with Mexican and other Hispanic backgrounds. In Canada, after controls, the 2nd generation racial minority groups outperform the 3rd plus generation educationally, but the 2nd generation with European and American backgrounds do better in the labour market. Based on the trends in the composition of immigrants since the 1980s, and their correlation with 2nd generation outcomes, the educational and labour market gaps may move in different direction in the two countries in the future; becoming increasingly positive in Canada, and more negative in the U.S.Immigrants, Second Generation, Labour Market Outcomes, Canada and the United States

The Effect of Immigrant Selection and the IT Bust on the Entry Earnings of Immigrants

Immigrant selection rules were altered in the early 1990s, resulting in a dramatic increase in the share of entering immigrants with a university degree and in the skilled economic class. These changes were very successfully implemented following significant deterioration in entry earnings during the 1980s. This paper asks whether these change in immigrant selection contributed positively to immigrant entry earnings during the 1990s. Moving to the 2000s, the paper asks whether, after almost two decades of deterioration, the entry earnings of immigrants improved early in the decade, and if not, why not. We find that through the 1990s, altering immigrant characteristics did little to improve earnings at the bottom of the earnings distribution, and hence poverty rates among entering immigrants. A rapidly increasing share of immigrants with university degrees and in the skilled class found themselves at the bottom of the earnings distribution. They were unable to convert their education and “skilled class†designation to higher earnings. This inability may be related to language, credentialism, education quality, or supply issues, as discussed in the paper. However, the changing charcateristics did increase earnings among immigrants at the middle and top of the earnings distribution. We also find that from 2000 to 2004 the entry earnings of immigrants renewed their slide, but for reasons that differed from the standard explanations of the earlier decline. Following a significant increase in the supply of entering immigrants intending to work in IT and engineering during the late 1990s and early 2000s, these immigrants were faced with the IT downturn. The result was declining entry earnings, concentrated largely among these workers.immigration, earnings, high tech, immigrants