Regulated Health Professions: Outcomes by Place of Birth and Training

Abstract

Do foreign birth and/or the possession of foreign academic credentials affect integration into Canadian regulated health occupations? While there are a few important commonalities across the eight occupations studied, especially that the foreign born, foreign trained are less likely to work in their trained profession, there are a number of differences. Broad-based policies will, therefore, have occupation-specific impacts. Among those actually working in their trained field, place of study/birth earnings gaps are frequently not statistically different from zero and, when non-zero, are negative for some occupations and positive for others. For workers who surmount the regulatory/employment hurdles, there is no evidence of sector-wide systematic earnings penalties to foreign birth/training although such effects may exist in selected occupations.