The importance of education and language for the income gap of immigrants in Canada: an empirical comparison of Chinese and Indian immigrants

Abstract

Based on the income differentials among native Canadians, Chinese immigrants and Indian immigrants, this report focuses on the educational quality and language proficiency that might account for the income gap. In addition, we study the effect of earnings assimilation throughout the immigration time horizon. On one hand, the statistics and empirical results indicate that education quality and language proficiency explain part of the income gap. On the other hand, the empirical work shows that Chinese and Indian immigrants can assimilate to narrow the income gap, however, the effect of their earnings assimilation is weaker than immigrants outside China and India.