Overview

Abstract (English)

Does regulation impede or facilitate immigrant parcipation in the labor market? To answer this question we focus on the growing, and increasingly regulated, Canadian health care sector. On the one hand, occupational regulation may facilitate immigrant entry into the labor market as it imposes standards based on credentials, and recent immigrants tend to be highly skilled. On the other hand, provin- cially designated authories often enforce regulatory standards, and their selection criterion may unwitngly penalize those with foreign credenals or experience. Using a longitudinal data set combining information on the regulation of nine Canadian health care occupations and the Canadian Census from 1991 to 2006, we test whether the introducon of regulation places a greater burden on the immigrant population relative to the native born. Specifically, we employ a difference in methodology, exploiting variation across provinces and over time in whether an occupation is regulated to identify its effect on the ratio of immigrants to native born-workers employed in that occupation. The results indicate that, on average, a province’s introduction of occupational regulation increases the parcipation of immigrants relative to the native born by 20%.

Abstract (French)

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