The First Decade of the New Life: The Income Trajectories of Canada’s Immigrants and Refugees, 2001-2012

Previous research has shown that economic integration of immigrants and refugees is a crucial indicator for their integration into their new countries, as it is a strong predictor of the strength of their sense of belonging to their new homes. Against this background, this study examines the incomes of different categories of immigrants to Canada – i.e., refugees, family-class, business-class, and skilled workers – for a cohort of immigrants who landed in Canada in 2001. Through the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada (LSIC), those immigrants were surveyed three times – six months, two years, and four years after arrival – between 2001 and 2005. Recently, through a unique pilot project by Statistics Canada, the authors have managed to link the LSIC data with the taxation data for those immigrants for the subsequent years till 2012. This allowed for an examination of the longitudinal trends in the earnings of this cohort of immigrants during the first decade after their arrival in Canada. A regression model is developed, with the logarithm of income as the dependent variable, and six groups of predictors as independent variables, including: a) the demographic traits, b) immigrant category, c) employment, d) source region, e) social capital, and f) religious background. The results show a very interesting pattern of change over time, but also some consistent features for the whole decade. The policy and research implications of these findings are discussed.