Economic disparities among South Asian immigrants in Canada

Abstract

This paper outlines the economic experiences of four South Asian ethno-cultural subgroups – Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Sri Lankans – which, together, form the largest visible minority group in Canada. The economic performance of the South Asian subgroups is compared using customized tables from Statistics Canada's Longitudinal Administrative Database. The paper argues that all four subgroups, Bangladeshis and Pakistanis, in particular– fared worse than the Canadian-born and another contemporaneous, but non-South Asian group – Filipinos – demonstrating a failure of the human capital model. The findings contribute to a better and more nuanced understanding of economic outcomes of South Asians with implications for Canadian immigration policies and settlement programmes.

Keywords:

• South Asians
• immigrants
• Canada
• Longitudinal Administrative Database
• Filipinos
• economic performance

Acknowledgements

The author acknowledges the substantial amount of work and time put in by his research assistant, Amanda Chen, in performing the ordinal logistic regressions. The author also thanks the Statistics Canada officials – Brian Murphy, Claude Dionne and Paul Roberts – who helped prepare the custom tables from the LAD. Thanks to Drs Jeffrey Reitz, Murtaza Haider and Raktim Mitra and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on earlier drafts.

Notes

Ethnicity is a socially constructed attribute of individuals and groups based on their culture, language, nationality, and/or customs (Abercrombie et al. 2000). It can change over time and context and applies to immigrants as well as to the Canadian-born. Statistics Canada defined ethnic origin as a respondent's cultural inheritance from ancestors derived from her or his roots and not nationality, language, or citizenship (Statistics Canada 2006).

According to Statistics Canada, the ‘visible minority’ refers to a person who belongs to a visible minority group as defined by the Employment Equity Act, which defines visible minorities as ‘persons, other than Aboriginal peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour’. The visible minority population consists mainly of the following groups: Chinese, South Asian, Black, Arab, West Asian, Filipino, Southeast Asian, Latin American, Japanese, and Korean.

In 2006, about 48,000 self-identified Afghans resided in Canada, many of whom arrived in the country as government-assisted or privately sponsored refugees.

According to CIC (2010), in 2009, 28,415 Filipinos, 29,171 Indians and 29,833 Chinese arrived in Canada as permanent residents. The following year, 2010, saw 38,298 Filipinos, 33,514 Indians and 31,040 Chinese.

Census family as defined by Statistics Canada constitutes a married couple and the children, if any, of either or both spouses; or a couple living common-law and the children, if any, of either or both partners. All members of a particular census family live in the same dwelling.

The NAICS is a system that groups together production units that use similar production processes.

1. Landing year (six cohorts between 1980 and 2007, plus Canadian-born or immigrated before 1980); 2. Country of birth (seven sources, plus Canadian-born or immigrated before 1980); 3. Annual family income expressed in 2008 constant dollars (seven categories); 4. Age at landing (seven categories); 5. Gender (male/female); 6. Immigrant category (six categories); 7. Level of education at landing (high school or less, some university/college diploma, university degree); 8. Official language ability (see Note 1) (yes or no); 9. Industry derived from NAICS (13 categories); 10. Full-time education deduction (claimed/not claimed); 11. Immigrant/emigrant code (no migration, entry or exit); and 11. Last place (i.e. country) lived (16 places).

Intermarriages between Portuguese and Sinhalese and Dutch and Sinhalese resulted into a new ethnic group called the Burghers.

Total income is the aggregate of all incomes before tax reported to the Canada Revenue Agency by all members of an individual's census family. The income is the sum of various sources of income including employment earnings from T4 slips, self-employment, rental income, universal child-care benefit, pension, Canadian Pension Plan, investments, or other income.

The objective of the Business Immigration Program is to promote, encourage, and facilitate the immigration of experienced business persons from abroad who will make a positive contribution to the country's economic development by applying their risk capital and know-how to Canadian business ventures which create jobs for Canadians (Ley 2003).