Are Immigrants in Canada Employed in Poorer Quality Jobs?
This paper examines whether immigrants are employed in lower quality jobs as compared to Canadian-born workers. To do this we use data from the General Social Survey as well as the Labour Force Survey and consider a number of objective and subjective dimensions of job quality. Along the more objective indicators of job quality, such as, collective agreement coverage, training, access to extended benefits and wages, we find that, on average, immigrants tend to fare worse than Canadian-born workers. Somewhat surprisingly, however, we also found that on some of the more subjective measures of job quality, which are based on incumbents’ perceptions of their work, there were few discernable differences between immigrants and Canadian-born workers. What’s more, on a few subjective indicators of job quality, immigrants actually fared better than their Canadian-born counterparts. Specifically, we found that relative to native-born workers, immigrants perceived higher levels of managerial support as well as a greater ability to complete their work during scheduled time.
In sum, we find that objectively, immigrants are more likely to occupy poorer quality jobs, a finding that is consistent with extant literature that identifies structural barriers and disadvantages faced by immigrants in the labour market. Subjectively, however, many immigrants report higher levels of job satisfaction and perceive their jobs to have favorable attributes. This paradox can be partially explained by Relative Deprivation Theory, which suggests that immigrants’ perceptions are shaped by comparisons to conditions in their home countries or among their immigrant peers rather than native-born Canadians. Thus, when attempting to differentiate between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ jobs, the answer nuanced and one’s frame of reference matters.
The results of this study suggest that efforts to improve immigrant access to high-quality jobs remain crucial.
Lamb, D., & Banerjee, R. (2024). It's Not Great, but It Could Be Worse! Immigrant Job Quality in Canada Through the Lens of Relative Deprivation Theory (external link, opens in new window) . Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society 00(0): 1–19. doi: 10.1111/irel.12374