Abstract
The purpose of this article is to analyse ethnoracial differences in income attainment, as well as differences in earnings that can be attributed to social capital. The data set is the Ethnic Diversity Survey, a large survey of Canadians conducted by Statistics Canada in 2002. Bivariate and multivariate analyses show that ethnoracial minorities are disadvantaged when compared with the British or whites in general. This disparity remains even after controlling for a host of theoretically relevant variables. The brunt of this disadvantage is experienced by male visible-minority immigrants. Although social capital is shown to exert an independent effect on earnings, its benefit varies by social origins, types of social capital, birth, and gender. Trust is important for females’ earnings but not for males’. Family contact and religious participation benefits British males’ earnings more than those of visible-minority males. Religious participation also benefits those born in Canada more than those who immigrated to Canada. In contrast, female immigrants benefit from their associational participation more than females born in Canada.
Résumé
L’objectif de cet article est d’analyser les différences ethnoraciales par rapport au revenu ainsi que les différences de revenu attribuables au capital social. Les données proviennent de l’Enquête sur la diversité ethnique entreprise par Statistique Canada en 2002. Des analyses bidimensionnelles et multidimensionnelles indiquent que les minorités ethnoraciales sont défavorisées par rapport aux Britanniques ou aux blancs de façon générale. Cette disparité persiste même après que l’on neutralise toute une gamme de variables pouvant s’avérer pertinentes. Les hommes immigrants et membres d’une minorité visible sont particulièrement défavorisés. Bien que le capital social exerce un effet indépendant sur le revenu, les bienfaits qui s’y rattachent varient selon les origines sociales, le type de capital social, la naissance et le sexe. La confiance joue un rôle important dans le revenu des femmes, mais pas dans celui des hommes. Les hommes britanniques profitent plus du contact avec la famille et de la participation aux activités religieuses que les hommes membres d’une minorité visible. La participation aux activités religieuses apporte plus d’avantages aux personnes nées au Canada qu’aux immigrants. Par contre, les immigrantes profitent plus de la participation associative que les femmes nées au Canada.
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Notes
Persons who declared an Aboriginal ethnic origin or Aboriginal identity in the 2001 Census were excluded from the survey. Nevertheless, EDS includes individuals with Aboriginal ancestry. These individuals are included in the analysis. Similarly, it should be noted that restriction of data to those working full time and full year excludes drastic sources of inequality experienced by visible minorities who are more likely to be unemployed or have irregular jobs.
For example, the correlation between the two income measures is 0.63. After examination it was noted that EDS included 32 cases with a reported income of more than $350,000, while in the census measure these cases were top coded. After recoding the EDS measure of income, thus matching it with the census measure, the correlation improved to 0.75. In other words, two measures are not exactly comparable.
The Government of Canada distinguishes Aboriginals from other visible minorities as members of the designated group for the purpose of Employment Equity. However, given the small number of Aboriginals who are employed full time and full year, they are included in the visible-minority group (see also note 1).
This variable can be conceptualized on a continuum ranging from ethnic similarity (bonding social capital) to ethnic diversity (bridging social capital) of social networks. Here we refer to it as ethnic networks. At the high ethnic similarity of networks continuum, opportunities to individual members are limited to what are available to the ethnic community and tends to minimize contacts with outsiders. Here it has the potential to produce blocked mobility for the ethnic group members (the dark side of social capital). This is particularly problematic for ethnic minorities who have lesser access to scarce resources. At the high ethnic diversity continuum, individuals are able to build relationships with members of other groups and thus have access to more opportunities and resources than what is available to their group.
Unfortunately, EDS does not have a measure of experience either in terms of on-the-job training or years of labour force participation. One way to overcome this problem is to replicate earlier research that measured it through a proxy variable ((age − (years of education + 5)) (Pendakur and Pendakur 1998; Li 2001). However, there are several problems with this procedure. This construct tends to overestimate years of labour force participation and ignores employment disruption. This becomes more of a problem for estimation of visible minorities’ and immigrants’ earnings, given their higher employment disruption. Moreover, inclusion of this variable in this study was shown to be highly correlated with education, and age. Once this measure was included in the full model the Variance Inflation Factor (VIF) obtained was 199.5 for experience, 8.2 for education and 203.5 for age. According to Cohen et al. (2003), a VIF of 10 and more is evidence of serious multicollinearity involving corresponding independent variables. Therefore, this variable is excluded from the analyses.
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This research was supported by a grant from the Social Science Humanities Research Council of Canada. The author thanks Statistics Canada for granting access to the London Research Data Centre.
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Nakhaie, M.R. Ethnoracial Origins, Social Capital, and Earnings. Int. Migration & Integration 8, 307–325 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-007-0024-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-007-0024-x