Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-c47g7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-18T04:40:47.359Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Immigration and the Canadian Earnings Distribution in the First Half of the Twentieth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 May 2016

Alan G. Green  and
David A. Green
Alan G. Green
Affiliation:
Alan G. Green was Professor Emeritus, deceased 3 November 2010, Department of Economics, Queen's University.
David A. Green
Affiliation:
David A. Green is Professor, Vancouver School of Economics, University of British Columbia and International Research Fellow, IFS, 997-1973 East Mall Vancouver, BC Canada V6T 1Z1. E-mail: david.green@ubc.ca.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We use newly available micro-data from the 1911 to 1941 Canadian Censuses to investigate the impact of immigration on the Canadian earnings distribution in the first half of the twentieth century. We show that Canadian inequality rose sharply in the inter-war years, particularly in the 1920s, coinciding with two of the largest immigration decades in Canadian history. We find that immigration was not the main force driving changes in the earnings distribution. This results from a combination of self-selection by immigrants, occupational adjustments after arrival, and general equilibrium adjustments in the economy.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 76 , Issue 2 , June 2016 , pp. 387 - 426
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

We are grateful to Herb Emery for providing us with wage series he collected from the Labour Gazette and for several useful conversations about this paper. We benefited from useful conversations with Mary Mackinnon and with participants at the 2005 CNEH meetings and the 2006 TARGET meetings.

References

REFERENCES

Abramitzky, Ran, Boustan, Leah Platt, and Eriksson, Katherine. “A Nation of Immigrants: Assimilation and Economic Outcomes in the Age of Mass Migration.” Journal of Political Economy 122, no. 3 2014: 467–717.Google Scholar
Bertram, Gordon W., and Michael B., Percy. “Real Wage Trends in Canada 1900–26: Some Provisional Estimates.” Canadian Journal of Economics 12, no. 2 1979: 299–312.Google Scholar
Borjas, George J. “The Labor Demand Curve Really is Downward Sloping: Reexamining the Impact of Immigration on the Labor Market.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 118, no. 4 2003: 1335–74.Google Scholar
Card, David. “The Impact of the Mariel Boatlift on the Miami Labor Market.” Industrial and Labor Relations Review 43, no. 2 1990: 245–57.Google Scholar
Card, David. “Immigrant Inflows, Native Outflows, and the Local Labor Market Impacts of Higher Immigration.” Journal of Labor Economics 19, no. 1 2001: 22–64.Google Scholar
Chambers, Edward J., and Donald S., Gordon. “Primary Products and Economic Growth, An Empirical Measurement.” Journal of Political Economy 74, no. 4 1966: 315–32.Google Scholar
D'Amuri, Francesco, Ottaviano, Gianmarco I.P., and Peri, Giovanni. “The Labor Market Impact of Immigration in Western Germany in the 1990s.” European Economic Review 54 2010: 550–70.Google Scholar
Dustmann, Christian, and Preston, Ian. “Estimating the Effect of Immigration on Wages.” CREAM Working Paper No. 21/11, London, U.K., 2011.Google Scholar
Emery, J. C. Herbert, and Levitt, Clint. “Cost of Living, Real Wages, and Real Incomes in Thirteen Canadian Cities, 1900–1950.” Canadian Journal of Economics 35, no. 1 2002: 115–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Firpo, Sergio, Fortin, Nicole M., and Lemieux, Thomas. “Unconditional Quantile Regressions.” Econometrica 77, no. 2 2009: 953–73.Google Scholar
Greasley, David, and Oxley, Les. “Globalization and Real Wages in New Zealand 1873–1913.” Explorations in Economic History 41 2004: 26–47.Google Scholar
Green, Alan G. “The Political Economy of Immigrant Selection in Canada, 1896–1930.” Department of Economics Working Paper, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, 1993.Google Scholar
Green, Alan G. “International Migration and the Evolution of Prairie Labour Markets in Canada, 1900–1930.” In Migration and the International Labor Market, 1850–1939, edited by Hatton, Timothy J. and Williamson, Jeffrey G., 156–74. London: Routledge, 1994.Google Scholar
Green, Alan G., and David A., Green. “Balanced Growth and the Geographic Distribution of European Immigrant Arrivals to Canada, 1900–14.” Explorations in Economic History 30 1993: 31–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, Alan G., and MacKinnon, Mary. “The Slow Assimilation of British Immigrants in Canada: Evidence from Montreal and Toronto, 1901.” Explorations in Economic History 38 2001: 315–38.Google Scholar
Green, Alan G., and Sparks, Gordon. “Population Growth and the Dynamics of Canadian Development: A Multivariate Time Series Approach.” Explorations in Economic History 36 1999: 56–71.Google Scholar
Hatton, Timothy J., and Jeffrey G., Williamson. The Age of Mass Migration. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Kelley, Ninette, and Trebilcock, Michael. The Making of the Mosaic: A History of Canadian Immigration Policy, Second Edition. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010.Google Scholar
Lew, Byron. “European Immigration to Canada During the 1920s: The Impact of US Quotas and Canadian Restrictions.” Department of Economics Working Paper, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, 2000.Google Scholar
Lewis, Frank. “The Canadian Wheat Boom and Per Capita Income: New Estimates.” Journal of Political Economy 83, no. 6 1975: 1249–57.Google Scholar
Mackinnon, Mary. “New Evidence on Canadian Wage Rates, 1900–1930.” Canadian Journal of Economics 29, no. 1 1996: 114–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ottaviano, Gianmarco I. P., and Peri, Giovanni. “Rethinking the Effects of Immigration on Wages.” Journal of the European Economic Association 10, no. 1 2012: 152–97.Google Scholar
Pope, David H., and Withers, Glenn. “Wage Effects of Immigration in Late-Nineteenth Century Australia.” In Migration and the International Labor Market, 1850–1939, edited by Hatton, Timothy J. and Williamson, Jeffrey G., 235–57. London: Routledge, 1994.Google Scholar
Taylor, Alan M., and Jeffrey G., Williamson. “Convergence in the Age of Mass Migration.” European Review of Economic History 1 1997: 27–63.Google Scholar
Urquhart, Malcolm C., and Kenneth, A. H. Buckley. Historical Statistics of Canada. Toronto: Macmillan, 1965.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Green and Green supplementary material

Online Appendix

Download Green and Green supplementary material(File)
File 1.2 MB