ARCHIVED – Social Capital and Wages - Outcome of Recent Immigrants to Canada
5. Descriptive Statistics of the Estimation sample
After the selection of the sample[Note 14] , there were 3014 males and 2399 females left for the estimations. Table 1 presents the weighted survey means for the dependent and selected independent variables for both male and female immigrants included in the sample.[Note 15]
The real weekly wages for male and female immigrants were $705 and $485 in 2005 Canadian dollars, respectively. Among male immigrants in the sample, 59% landed as a skilled worker principal applicant while 20% were family class immigrants and 5% were refugees. About 4 in 10 female immigrants in the sample were skilled worker spouses and dependants, followed by family class (29%), skilled worker principal applicants (24%) and refugees (4%). The mean ages were 36 and 34 years for males and females and most of them were married or living with a common-law partner. South Asian, Chinese, White and Filipino were the main ethnic groups. A majority of these newcomers had at least a university degree (64% of male and 55% of female) and knowledge of English (92% and 86% of male and female immigrants, respectively).
Among the employed newcomers, 17% got their current main job through a co ethnic friend, compared to at least 6% through family ties (6% for male newcomers and 8% for females). A friend with an ethnic background different from that of the respondent contributes 3% of job hunting successes.
At the time of landing, around 50% of immigrants had relatives already living nearby (49% of men and 55% of women). And also about half of the immigrants had friends living in the same province or city (51% and 48% for male and female newcomers, respectively). Participation in organizations was relatively low: only three in 10 immigrants took part in any kind of groups or organizations (30% and 29% for males and females respectively). As the ethnic diversity indexes are scaled to run from 0 to 1, the immigrants in the sample demonstrated relatively diverse networks (about 0.5 for friendship diversity and nearly 0.8 for workplace diversity).[Note 16]
Female immigrants had more relatives in Canada than males whereas male newcomers made more friends in Canada than females. While the LSIC does not provide information on the absolute number of people in all networks, there are some good substitutes for network size. For example, information is collected on the types of relatives in Canada (spouse, children, parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, cousins, etc.). By counting the types of relatives, the study gives an approximation of network size for families. In a similar way, the size of friendship network is obtained by counting the sources from where an immigrant met new friends. However, these relative measurements for network size tend to underestimate the true size; thus the effects of network size should be interpreted with caution when compared with those from other studies using absolute numbers.
| Males | Females | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weighted Mean | Standard Error | Weighted Mean | Standard Error | |
| Real weekly wage | 705.442 | 6.803 | 485.029 | 5.993 |
| Immigration category | ||||
| Family (Reference category) | 0.204 | 0.005 | 0.290 | 0.007 |
| Skilled Workers (PA) | 0.593 | 0.007 | 0.239 | 0.007 |
| Skilled Workers (S&D) | 0.107 | 0.004 | 0.390 | 0.008 |
| Refugees | 0.050 | 0.002 | 0.041 | 0.003 |
| Others | 0.045 | 0.003 | 0.039 | 0.003 |
| Demographic variables | ||||
| Age | 36.078 | 0.126 | 34.388 | 0.149 |
| Married | 0.788 | 0.006 | 0.787 | 0.007 |
| Ethnic group | ||||
| White (Reference category) | 0.213 | 0.005 | 0.220 | 0.006 |
| Chinese | 0.176 | 0.005 | 0.215 | 0.007 |
| South Asian | 0.302 | 0.006 | 0.253 | 0.007 |
| Black | 0.055 | 0.003 | 0.047 | 0.003 |
| Filipino | 0.103 | 0.004 | 0.115 | 0.005 |
| Latin | 0.024 | 0.002 | 0.034 | 0.003 |
| West Asian and Arab | 0.085 | 0.004 | 0.066 | 0.004 |
| Other Asian | 0.030 | 0.002 | 0.034 | 0.003 |
| Other Visible Minority | 0.012 | 0.001 | 0.016 | 0.002 |
| Education | ||||
| High school diploma or less | 0.186 | 0.005 | 0.225 | 0.006 |
| Some post-secondary education | 0.063 | 0.003 | 0.051 | 0.003 |
| College diploma or some university | 0.114 | 0.004 | 0.173 | 0.006 |
| Bachelor's degree (Reference category) | 0.404 | 0.007 | 0.381 | 0.008 |
| Master's degree or above | 0.233 | 0.006 | 0.171 | 0.006 |
| Language ability | ||||
| English | 0.916 | 0.004 | 0.862 | 0.005 |
| French | 0.147 | 0.005 | 0.143 | 0.006 |
| Channels through which current main job was found | ||||
| Job found through family ties | 0.064 | 0.003 | 0.083 | 0.004 |
| Job found through co ethnic friends | 0.165 | 0.005 | 0.171 | 0.006 |
| Job found through non-co ethnic friends | 0.033 | 0.002 | 0.035 | 0.003 |
| Social capital indicators | ||||
| Number of relatives in Canada | 0.800 | 0.013 | 0.881 | 0.015 |
| Relatives living nearby upon landing | 0.487 | 0.007 | 0.549 | 0.008 |
| Relatives living far upon landing | 0.036 | 0.003 | 0.033 | 0.003 |
| Frequency of contact with family sponsors | 0.218 | 0.005 | 0.294 | 0.007 |
| Number of sources meeting friends | 2.772 | 0.022 | 2.727 | 0.027 |
| Friends living nearby upon landing | 0.512 | 0.007 | 0.483 | 0.008 |
| Friends living far upon landing | 0.112 | 0.004 | 0.091 | 0.005 |
| Ethnic diversity of friends | 0.495 | 0.004 | 0.494 | 0.005 |
| Frequency of contact with friends | 0.791 | 0.003 | 0.792 | 0.003 |
| Ethnic diversity of workplace network | 0.790 | 0.003 | 0.770 | 0.004 |
| Participation in organization | 0.298 | 0.006 | 0.286 | 0.007 |
| Number of individuals | 3014 | 2399 | ||
| Number of observations | 6235 | 4448 | ||
Data source: Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada (2005).
Notes
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