Earnings differences among second-generation South Asians

Abstract

Despite the fact that South Asians now form the largest visible minority population group in Canada, an important indicator of their integration that is the labour market outcome for second-generation South Asians has been paid less attention. The existing literature treats South Asians a homogeneous group at the neglect of sub-group differences. The present study aims to fill this gap by analysing the earnings of second-generation Indians, Pakistanis and Sri Lankans in relation to British–French counterparts. The analysis of the 2006 Census shows significant earnings differentials among second-generation South Asian sub-groups. Multivariate regression results indicate that Pakistanis and Indians are not statistically different from their British–French counterparts, while the earnings gap remains significant for second-generation Sri Lankans. The findings of the study have implications for policy formulation and future research.

Keywords:

• South Asians
• second generation
• labour market outcomes
• visible minorities

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

This research was funded by an Insight Development Grant, granted to the second author by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRCC).

Notes on contributors

Muhammad Raza, Department of Sociology, Nipissing University, 100 College Drive, North Bay, ON, Canada, P1B 8L7, Canada.

Amir Erfani, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Nipissing University, 100 College Drive, North Bay, ON, Canada, P1B 8L7, Canada.

Notes

1. The term ‘visible minorities’ was developed by the Canadian federal government to meet the data needs of the federal employment equity legislation in the 1980s (Boyd, 2008). Visible minorities are defined in this act as ‘persons, other than Aboriginal peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in color'. Using this definition, regulations specify the following groups within the visible minority population: South Asian, Chinese, Black, Arab, West Asian, Filipino, Southeast Asian, Latin American, Japanese and Korean.

2. We took only 30% random sample of the original numbers of British and French second generation in order to make them compatible with South Asian sub-groups.

3. In the 2006 census, the numbers of years of education question is not included; following Hou and Coulombe (2010), the years of schooling for the 2006 Census was imputed from the estimated median years of schooling in the 2001 census by the highest level of certificate or degree for European and South Asian foreign-born individuals aged 25–64 years, employed and living in CMAs. These estimated median years of schooling were then assigned to corresponding levels of certificate or degree in the 2006 census as follows: none (10 years of schooling); high school graduation certificate (12 years); other trades certificate or diploma, registered apprenticeship certificate or diploma, college, CEGEP or other non-university certificate or diploma from a programme of three months to less than one year in duration (13 years); college, CEGEP, or other non-university certificate or diploma from a programme of one to two years (14 years); college, CEGEP, or other non-university certificate or diploma from a programme of more than two years (15 years); certificate or diploma below bachelor (16 years); bachelor's degree (17 years); certificate or diploma above bachelor (18 years); degree in medicine or dentistry, veterinary medicine or optometry (19 years); master's degree (20 years) and earned doctorate degree (21 years).