Overview

Summary

The Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada (LSIC), an immigration panel survey, and tax data information from the Longitudinal Immigration Database (IMDB) have been combined to provide an extended analytical file (LSIC-IMDB). Topics covered in the survey include language proficiency, housing, education, foreign credential recognition, employment, health, values and attitudes, the development and use of social networks, income, and perceptions of settlement in Canada. Latest additional socio-economic outcomes are then provided from tax filing information.

In addition to the IMDB-LSIC linkage keys, researchers do need to request and be approved for access to IMDB-Allcycles and LSIC. For any IMDB-LSIC related questions please contact your local Research Data Centre.

The extended file: There exists a constant need for information on immigrants to Canada. As part of adapting to life in Canada, many immigrants face challenges such as finding suitable accommodation, learning or becoming more fluent in one or both of Canada's official languages, participating in the labour market or accessing education and training opportunities. The LSIC provides indicators of how immigrants are meeting these and other challenges. While settlement process may take many years, the LSIC is designed to examine the first four years, a time when newcomers establish economic, social and cultural ties to Canadian society. To this end, the objectives of the survey are two-fold: to study how new immigrants adjust to life in Canada over time; and, to provide information on the factors that can facilitate or hinder this adjustment.

The linkage to IMDB tax data offers a unique opportunity to connect the respondents’ social characteristics to long term socioeconomic outcomes without adding a new wage of interviews. With IMDB tax files updated yearly, LSIC respondents can be followed longitudinally without any sort of respondent burden. Additional detailed economic outcomes increase the analytical capacity of the survey.

This linkage is deterministic, it uses the immigrants’ Serial number from admission file provided by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). Additionally, the IMDB brings together immigration from IRCC, taxation data from the Canada Revenue Agency (Annual Income Estimates for Census Families and Individuals –T1 Family files), and the date of death from Statistics Canada’s Amalgamated Mortality Database (AMDB). The benefits of analysis using the LSIC-IMDB include:

• Support for evidence based policy making;
• Increase the use of administrative data sources for research, thereby reducing the cost of data collection and the burden on respondents for surveys;
• Allow inferential statistical analysis on the confidential microdata and analytical work complex in nature or not suitable for other forms of data access.

1. arrived in Canada between October 1, 2000 and September 30, 2001;
2. were age 15 years or older at the time of landing;
3. landed from abroad, must have applied through a Canadian Mission Abroad.

Available Cycles