Another Look at the Francophone Wage Gap in Canada:Public vs Private Sector, Quebec vs Outside Quebec

Abstract

Using a variant of the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition method, I find no evidence that, outside Quebec, there was at any point in time between 1970 and 2000, a labour market advantage for Anglophones that cannot be explained by a higher relative demand for English skills, whether in the public sector or the private sector. However, I find that in Quebec’s public sector, between 1970 and 2000, Francophones enjoyed a wage premium that may have gone beyond language skill considerations and that I cannot explain. Such a premium also appears to have been present in Quebec’s private sector in 2000.Francophone-Anglophone wage differential, return to language skills, discrimination