Annual Levels of Immigration and Immigrant Entry Earnings in Canada

Abstract

The annual level of immigration is a critical component of a country's immigration policy. This study considers the potential influence of immigration levels on immigrant entry earnings. Using the Longitudinal Immigration Database over the 1982–2010 period, this study finds that a 10 percent increase in the size of a cohort of entering immigrants is associated with a 0.8 percent decline in entry earnings among immigrant men in that cohort and a 0.3 percent decline among immigrant women when controls for changes in immigrant characteristics and macroeconomic conditions are applied. These effects are consistent across the immigrant entry earnings distribution, although somewhat weaker at the very top.