Due to the unprecedented dependency of refugees on ICT, the authors investigate how e-learning can be used to support refugees in the integration process and contributes to their social inclusion into the host country.
They use qualitative research methods to gather deep insights into this issue. 28 face-face interviews were conducted with refugees in Germany, in the area of Berlin and Brandenburg. In this paper, they report on their findings, including; legal regulations, e-learning channels, learning formats, creativity using e-learning, challenges and obstacles.
The paper is structured as follows:
Overview
In this paper, the authors tackle the use of e-learning by Syrian refugees in Germany to achieve social inclusion. Education, together with learning local languages, is one of the top three dimensions of social inclusion alongside social networking and employment.
Researchers have shown that education and language enable social inclusion. In the case of refugees, a good command of the local language is essential to a successful social inclusion process, which encourages enabling the refugees to attend language courses upon their arrival. Refugees have to start a new journey in the host country by visiting several governmental offices to submit their asylum applications and clarify other formalities, including getting a residence permit, health insurance, accommodation, etc. This requires the refugees to communicate with different groups including local authorities, governmental offices, locals, and volunteers. Nevertheless, asylum seekers are typically not qualified to participate in education programs (including learning the language) until their lengthy asylum application processes have been completed.
Moreover, official statistics have shown that more than 83% of asylum seekers in Europe in 2015 were younger than 35 years old. This clearly indicates the importance of education for this young population group. This includes the need to learn the local language, participate in educational programs, and take part in professional training). Here, ICT emerges as a means to alleviate this challenge, with Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as a key tool. MOOCs have been growing in popularity and are attracting the attention of millions of online learners worldwide by providing easy and ready access to education.
Despite this, researchers in the IS community have observed that existing research offers limited insights into the process by which ICT may contribute to a greater use of e-learning opportunities in the context of refugees. To fill this gap and understand how ICT can promote the social inclusion of refugees in host countries, the authors use qualitative research by conducting face-to-face interviews with refugees in Berlin-Germany to investigate their use of ICT for e-learning purposes.
Conclusion
This research shows a clear potential for e-learning as a means of social inclusion for Syrian refugees in Germany. Many refugees already use e-learning offers to learn the German language through YouTube, Facebook, WhatsApp, and specialized mobile apps. These offers give them advantages, such as more flexibility and freedom during the learning process, over traditional learning offers.
Yet, several refugees emphasize the role of traditional classrooms and call for a mixed approach of both digital and physical classrooms.
Furthermore, the research shows that e-learning can be further adopted by more refugees if adequate technical infrastructure, e.g., robust Internet connections, are provided to refugees. Also, quiet environments that are suitable for studying are required to encourage refugees to utilize e-learning offers. Additionally, sufficient advertising is needed in order to inform refugees about available e-learning offers.
It is also worth mentioning that e-learning materials should be designed in an intuitive and simple way so that they can be consumed by a large group of refugees. Special materials should be also designed to target children, old people, and women with children.
Identifying the particular contribution of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to specific development goals has proven to be extremely difficult. This paper
argues that instead of trying to make ICTs fit with a linear conceptualisation of impacts and an often economistic view of development, the field of information and communication technologies
for development (ICT4D) should be used as a prime example of a development process which has to be analysed in a systemic and holistic way. Amartya Sen’s capability approach offers a way of thinking about development not as economic growth, but as individual freedom. The Choice Framework is presented as a way of operationalising this approach and visualising the elements of a systemic conceptualisation of the development process. An individual case study, related to telecentres in rural Chile, is used to demonstrate the way the Choice Framework can be applied as a guide to a systemic and holistic analysis.
(Editorial comment: Sen's capability approach and Choice Framework, if focused on Settlement Practitioners as "end users" or "clients" can illuminate an approach, when combined with additional ideas of informational capabilities, that could be used to create a useful framework for the immigrant and refugee-serving sector to build and evaluate settlement agencies' capacity to use technology to serve clients.)
Overview
The paradox is this: ICTs and particularly the Internet are widely regarded as groundbreaking inventions that have changed the way millions of people live their lives, and yet researchers and practitioners in the field of ICT and development often struggle to prove specific impacts of the technology to funders.
There may be specific reasons why particular projects fail, even some generalisable patterns of failure, but the overall degree to which the information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D) community has to struggle when trying to legitimise its work to funders is astonishing in the context of a general discourse about how much these technologies have changed our lives.
This paper tries to unravel the reasons behind this paradox by arguing two fundamental points: on a theoretical level, while there have been interesting alternative theoretical approaches to development, including Amartya Sen’s capability approach, the mainstream discourse’s conceptualisation remains heavily focused on economic growth, which is too narrow to capture the impacts of ICT. Secondly, and on a practical level, the common way of measuring impact, defining the intended development outcomes top-down and a priori is unsuitable in the context of multi-purpose technologies which could empower individuals to attain development outcomes of their own choice. Such multi-purpose technologies operate in complex and systemic development processes, which we need to conceptualise appropriately before we can understand the contribution of ICTs within such processes. Based on ethnographic work on ICTs in Chile, the paper presents the Choice Framework as a further step on this journey and a ‘living tool’ to be used and adapted in development research, planning and practice.
This paper argues that in order to properly understand the contribution of ICTs to development efforts, it is necessary to firstly, define which development paradigm we are working with and secondly, to refine our understanding of development processes to recognise their systemic nature. Only then can we understand the contribution of ICTs within the system. This paper is committed to a view of development based on Sen’s capability approach. Secondly, it recounts an attempt at translating his approach, conceptually and to a degree practically, into a systemic framework which maps the
development process. This systemic framework, the Choice Framework, emerged in parallel to and was then applied in ethnographic fieldwork on the effects of ICTs on microentrepreneurs’ livelihoods in Chile. Sen intended his approach to be combined with other theoretical approaches.
The paper is structured in seven parts. In Section 2, the author briefly introduces Sen’s capability approach before presenting, in Section 3, some important steps towards operationalising it.
Building on this body of work, Section 4 develops the Choice Framework as a further way of operationalising Sen’s approach. Implications for research and planning in the field of ICT4D are explored in Section 5 before, in Section 6, the Choice Framework is applied in a case study of one particular individual’s usage of the Internet in a telecentre in rural Chile. The final section points out limitations of the model, directions for further empirical research and calls for more theoretical work on the nature of the ‘development’ element in ICT4D. The paper concludes by highlighting some concrete implications this theoretical work may have for practitioners.
Implications for Practitioners
This study is designed to help settlement service providers anticipate new developments and bolster their capacities so they are better able to partner with governments and other stakeholders to meet the challenges facing newcomers and the communities where they reside. The goal of this paper is to ensure that settlement agencies have the capacity to fully partner with governments in designing policies and programs to meet the emerging challenges facing newcomers and the communities in which they settle. This is not, presently, the case.
The analysis is based on workshops, focus groups and interviews with the heads of settlement organizations and ethno‐specific agencies across Canada. Interviews were also conducted with senior provincial and federal officials as well as executives from United Ways and community foundations. Where available, the study tapped academic and government research, including program evaluations and policy assessments.
This paper advances the following arguments:
The skills and knowledge possessed by settlement agencies are embodied in four strategic capacities that are unique to the sector. These are:
The specialized knowledge possessed by settlement agencies and the trust they enjoy among newcomers and newcomer organizations can only be acquired tacitly by engaging in integration activities and mediating relations between mainstream and ethno‐specific organizations. Settlement agencies solve problems for individual immigrants, immigrant families and communities by creatively assembling government programs and other stakeholder services. Governments cannot do this because program knowledge is generally siloed and ministries tend to be unfamiliar with program intersections and interactions.
The fact that the settlement sector’s strategic capacities must be acquired ‘on-the-job’ means that the sector’s strengths cannot be replicated by other agencies, thus constituting a durable, strategic advantage.
Anticipated challenges and required capacities
A range of important challenges face settlement practitioners and policymakers. Addressing these challenges will require capacities that favour the settlement sector:
Introduction
The Internet and other technologies have great potential for delivering mental health services to children, youth and their families. The use of technologies such as mobile applications (apps), videoconferencing and Internet-based cognitive-behavioural therapy is burgeoning and there is a critical need to take stock of the impact of this movement, consider the advantages and difficulties associated with its use and develop strategies and policies to improve the practice of technology-enabled mental health service delivery. This policy paper:
By linking current research and relevant policy implications, this paper also provides a comprehensive picture of the potential role that technology (both existing and emerging) can have in improving child and youth mental health (CYMH) services in Ontario. There are promising implications if technology can be used to:
Key Messages
There is a worldwide increase in both the number of technologies used to deliver child and youth mental health (CYMH) services, and in their use. Such technologies will likely continue to grow in importance and have the potential to transform the CYMH sector.
Technology is viewed as a way to enhance access to mental health services for children, youth and their families.
Technology use is changing client-practitioner relationships and offers opportunities to empower clients. Technology can enhance service integration and inter-professional collaboration.
Live interactive telephone and videoconferencing have a substantial history in delivering mental health services and supports to children, youth and their parents and caregivers. The evidence base in the field of tele-mental health is well established and demonstrates a high degree of practitioner/user satisfaction, enhanced capacity of practitioners and families in rural communities, and overall therapeutic success.
Evidence for e-mental health is emerging and to date demonstrates the potential to engage young people, and deliver outcomes that are as good if not better than services as usual.
Existing services in Ontario have the capacity to make increased use of e-mental health as a vehicle for service delivery.
There is a strong need to address the outstanding issues and concerns related to privacy and confidentiality when using e-mental health to deliver services and supports. Substantial gaps exist
in the evidence base underlying e-mental health programs, especially regarding mobile applications. Much of what is currently available has not been evaluated.
A solid program of education and training in the use of particular technologies is needed for practitioners and consumers. Real time, ongoing technical support is a best practice. Ethical and regulatory guidelines or frameworks are required to keep pace with the emergence of new technologies.
Targeted knowledge exchange is essential to the demystification, uptake and integration of new service delivery technologies. Government has been recognized as an enabler for local innovation in the use of technology.
Technology is changing more quickly than our ability to properly assess its application. Practice is moving ahead of evidence, and opportunities for research are not fully realized.
This report focuses on the work undertaken by the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Committee of the Agency of the Future (AoF) Project. Download the report Executive Summary (PDF).
The AoF Project is a national initiative being developed collaboratively by the Pathways to Prosperity research consortium, settlement service providers and settlement umbrella associations. The goals of the AoF Project are:
Agency of the Future aims to do three things:
The integration of these three processes into a coordinated and recurrent cycle would power innovation within the national settlement sector.
Findings
Two types of themes emerged from the analysis of the stories and postings from the meetings, the wiki, and the case study reports.
The first was about the current use of ICTs. There were numerous ICTs being used by the settlement organizations involved in the case studies. While it can be appealing and valuable to catalogue the types of ICTs in use (e.g. social media, phone apps), it is far more important to understand how and why they are used. A large body of research in other fields (e.g. education, health) suggests that the drivers for deciding ICT use should be organizational and client needs, not the novelty or affordances of the ICTs themselves. The purpose and function of using ICTs are more important because ICTs may require large investments and substantial organizational change;and ICT options can change quickly. So in this report, the typology of ICT use focuses on functions and possibilities.
A look at the Typology of ICT in Settlement Services is categorized by:
The second theme was about the issues and questions that Committee members had concerning ICT use in settlement agencies - noted as capacity issues in relation to the introduction of ICT by the settlement sector. In some cases, agencies had planned and implemented specific projects using ICTs; in others, ICTs were being used experimentally to see if they could help address particular client needs. In both instances, issues - not unexpectedly - emerged as agencies thought about continuing to expand their use of ICTs for delivering existing services and for addressing new opportunities. Issues were also raised by Committee members who were not part of projects, but were trying to understand them. These issues are important for the agencies concerned and for the sector as a whole.
The data collected revealed extensive use of ICTs by service providers. Agencies are using social media (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn), mobile phone functions (e.g. texting and apps), blogs, videoconferencing and webinar tools (e.g. WebEx, Collaborate), Learning Management Systems (e.g. Desire to Learn, Canvas), file sharing programs (e.g. Dropbox, Google Drive), videosharing (e.g. YouTube, Vimeo), group collaboration (e.g. Google Docs) and data management tools (e.g. cloud computing, Correlate)
More important than the tools are the functions that the ICTs are being used for. The report identified four broad categories of current ICT use and investment:
The data also indicated important issues associated with the expanded use of ICTs. These involve:
Agencies want a clearer sense of how ICTs could be used to serve clients in the most appropriate manner.
Recommendations
The authors make two overarching recommendations.
The first is that the settlement sector -meaning the provincial, regional, and national umbrella associations –as a matter of priority, implement a national ICT review aimed at creating an action plan to guide agencies in the use of ICT and to encourage collaboration within the sector on all aspects of ICT development and implementation.
The second is that CIC act as a leader and catalyst for technological advancement using a mix of fiscal incentives and accommodative changes in the Department’s interface with settlement agencies.
Six specific recommendations are provided:
Good research needs to be read. But there is so much that comes out every day, how do you know what you should read now and what you can read later (or ignore)? A technique called Research Snapshots, pioneered at York University can be extremely useful: " Policy or practice related decisions are best informed by actionable messages derived from bodies of knowledge or from systematic reviews. Research Snapshots are summaries of single research studies. As such, they serve to identify interesting and relevant research and a researcher who may be contacted for further information. "
In this Research Snapshot, a couple of University of Victoria students looked at the use of mobile technology in Canadian social work. Below is their Research Snapshot. You can download a PDF version of it, as well as their full report Social work in the digital age: secure tech tools for social good.
What you need to know:
New technologies can increase mobility and efficiency in the field of social work, while keeping data secure. Harnessing these efficiencies is a chance to focus resources on vital in-person services for clients. To take advantage of this opportunity and avoid difficulties, match the technology to the demands of your practice, include clients and staff in the process, and look to existing models for insight.
What is this research about?
Historically, social workers gather information by taking written notes in the field and then return to their office to enter those notes into a secure database. This can be time-consuming and doesn't provide the real-time data which is sometimes needed. While social workers in British Columbia (BC) may be using multiple applications and devices, most of these have been implemented without consideration of work outside the traditional office, and may not have appropriate protective measures to keep information secure.
This research determines the industry-specific best practices for providing secure technologies supporting social work outside the office, to ultimately improve mobility and productivity by enabling staff working outside the office to spend more time delivering face-to-face services and doing outreach work.
What did the researchers do?
The researchers reviewed best practices and interviewed people in social work field. They used this data to help the BC Ministry of Children andFamily Development (MCFD) give social workers access to secure mobile technology suiting their client assistance needs.
These research questions guided the review:
What did the researchers find?
The findings revealed that without thorough engagement of stakeholders, technology use in the field can encounter resistance. This is a barrier to increased productivity. However, if the plan to implement mobile technology includes all relevant people, these barriers are much less likely to occur. Careful planning to match technology to the needs of the practice is key.
Given that most groups face strong reluctance among social workers to using mobile technologies, necessary engagement with social workers and clients is not yet happening among many institutions.
In a constantly evolving digital context, these are significant findings deserving further attention and research.
How can you use this research?
This research is relevant to anyone seeking to benefit from mobile technology for social work, including governmental agencies, non-profit organizations, and policy makers. The findings give helpful context for other groups transitioning to using mobile technology when working with clients and out of the office, especially for those with concerns about securing data. The intent of this research was to give MCFD information to effectively facilitate using mobile technology for social work in BC. The research recommendations give useful insight on engaging people with new technology and tracking the efficiency of new technology use.
About the researchers
Andrew Elliott and Leila Mazhari are graduate students in the University of Victoria’s Graduate Studies 505 multi-disciplinary research internship course.
Keywords: Foster care; residential homes; technology; foster homes; group homes; vacancy; child and youth care
Citation: Elliott, A. and Mazhari, L (2017).Mobile Technology in the Field of Social Work: A Report for the BC Ministry of Children and Family Development. Victoria, BC: University Of Victoria.
Overview
World Education Services (WES) conducted a survey-based study to examine predictors of skilled immigrants’ career success. They examined the demographic characteristics of skilled immigrants as well as their experience and education, and studied how these factors affect their labour market outcomes.
They looked at:
The report also includes the implications of these findings and identifies evidence gaps that require further research.
Key Findings
Predictors of employment:
Predictors of employment commensurate with prior skills, education, experience:
It was notable that both level of degree and years of international experience were not significantly associated with commensurate employment.
Pre- and post-migration shifts in sector and seniority:
Implications
While the gap between unemployment rates of immigrants and those of the Canadian-born has narrowed considerably, the study results indicate that many immigrants still encounter persistent barriers to commensurate employment in the Canadian labour market. More research evidence is needed to identify what specific policies and practices lead to better outcomes. Comparative research on the employment outcomes of skilled immigrants in other immigrant-receiving countries may shed new light. We need to build new (or scale existing) evidence-based policy interventions to improve opportunities for immigrants to obtain commensurate employment. The country benefits when immigrants can fully participate in the Canadian economy. The results of this research point to many opportunities to further refine policies and practices so that skilled immigrants can more fully contribute their skills and education to the Canadian workforce. Specifically, policy makers and practitioners need to gather information and data that will allow stakeholders to effectively address several key concerns:
Download the Executive Summary (PDF).
Source:
Research at a Glance is designed to inform the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) community and other interested parties about recently published, policy-relevant research from government, academic and NGO sources. The views expressed in the documents described do not necessarily reflect those of IRCC.
Executive Summary
The decision to further one’s education and training has important individual and societal implications.
Choices about post-secondary education (PSE) launch individuals onto their future educational and career paths. These decisions are vitally important to Canada’s economic prosperity as well to many individual and social outcomes. Against this backdrop, this joint LMIC-EPRI report provides extensive new evidence on the labour market earnings of PSE graduates.
Our analysis makes extensive use of the new Education and Labour Market Longitudinal Platform (ELMLP), developed by Statistics Canada and Employment and Social Development Canada. The ELMLP allows us to identify all college and university graduates from publicly funded Canadian PSE institutions from 2010 through 2014. We then track their annual employment earnings from the first year following graduation through 2015. This report focuses on individuals who graduated in 2010, since they have the longest earnings history observed on the current platform (2011–2015).
Our analysis of earnings is presented first by credential and then by field of study within each credential, thus providing broader and more detailed perspectives. The six credentials included are as follows: 1) college-level certificates, 2) collegelevel diplomas, 3) bachelor’s degrees, 4) master’s degrees, 5) doctoral degrees and 6) professional degrees. Eleven primary fields of study are included, covering a full range of domains: Education, Visual and performing arts, and communications technologies, Humanities, Social and behavioural sciences and law, Business, management and public administration, Physical and life sciences and technologies, Mathematics, computer and information sciences, Architecture, engineering and related technologies, Agriculture, natural resources and conservation, Health and related fields and Personal, protective and transportation services.
Our aim is to provide all PSE stakeholders — students, parents, institutions, policy makers, researchers and the broader Canadian public — with new earnings information that will help them make the most informed decisions possible. To that end, the report also is complemented by an interactive dashboard, allowing readers to explore the data further, according to their own interests and needs.
While salary is only one factor that Canadians consider when deciding to pursue PSE, our research indicates that it is the most sought after one by students. Other potentially important labour market outcomes are not yet available in the current ELMLP data environment, including benefits, contract status and hours worked.
For a decision of such magnitude, earnings should be used in combination with other information, along with guidance from family and others. One’s personal interests and abilities, of course, should also be taken into account.
Immigrants
Hou and Lu (2017) use a series of immigration databases, the census, the Longitudinal Worker File (LWF), and tax data to look at the earnings of three groups of graduates: immigrants who are former international students in Canada (Canadian-educated immigrants), foreign-educated immigrants who had a university degree before immigrating to Canada, and the Canadian-born population. The results show that Canadian-educated immigrants on average had much lower earnings than the Canadian-born population but higher earnings than foreign-educated immigrants, both in the short term and long term.
Earnings vary by credential, but for all 2010 PSE graduates, real earnings grew from $43,100 to $59,300, an increase of 8.4% per year (38% in total) from 2011 to 2015.
We find that the earnings of college-level graduates with certificates and diplomas follow very similar trends after graduation, starting at approximately $35,000 and reaching $47,000 five years later (all earnings are expressed in constant 2016 dollars). For bachelor’s degree graduates, earnings start at $41,100 in the first year and increase to $58,700 five years later. For master’s and doctoral degree graduates, average earnings start at $65,200 and $60,100, respectively. Both then reach approximately $83,000 in the fifth year following graduation. Professional degree graduates — doctors, lawyers, dentists and pharmacists — start at $68,300 and rise to approximately $99,600.
Seen from another perspective, collegelevel diploma and certificate graduates have average cumulative earnings growth of 35% and 31% over the five-year period, after adjusting for inflation. This represents 7.8% and 7.0% average growth per year, respectively. Earnings increase 43% in total (9.3% per year) for bachelor’s graduates; 27% (6.2% per year) for master’s degree graduates; 38% (8.3% per year) for doctoral degree holders; and 46% (9.9% per year) for professional degree graduates.
Considering all PSE students taken together, 2010 graduates saw an increase in earnings from $43,100 to $59,300 (38%) by 2015, an average of 8.4% per year. In context — not to be compared directly — during the same 2011–2015 period, all Canadians with and without PSE in the same general age group (22–28 years in 2010) saw average real earnings growth of 24% or 5.6% per year.
Five years after graduation, earnings vary widely by field of study within credentials, with the top fields earning between 40% and 60% more than graduates from fields with the lowest earnings.
On average, graduates in Architecture, engineering and related technologies earn the most among college-level certificate, college-level diploma and bachelor’s degree students five years after graduation (respectively, $60,500, $64,500 and $80,400). Among master’s and doctoral graduates, those from Business, management and public administration earn the most ($103,800 and $123,600, respectively).
At the other end of the spectrum, graduates in the Humanities with collegelevel certificates and diplomas and doctoral degrees, and graduates in Visual and performing arts, and communication technologies with bachelor’s and master’s degrees earn the least. These graduates earn between 43% less ($27,500) for college-level diplomas and 61% less ($62,800) for master’s degrees than those from the highest earning fields of study.
The exception to these large differences is among professional degree graduates, for whom only two fields of study are observed: Social and behavioural sciences, and law and Health and related fields. Graduates from these two fields (primarily doctors and lawyers) earn essentially the same amount five years after graduation.
In every field of study, women earn less than their male counterparts five years after graduating and in the vast majority of cases average gender earnings differences increase from year one to year five.
Across the six credentials, women earn 2% to 21% less than men in their first year following graduation. This difference grows to between 16% (doctoral degree) and 34% (college-level certificate) after five years.
Averaging across all credentials, women earn 12% ($5,700) less than men one year after graduation. This difference widens every subsequent year, in both absolute and relative terms, to 25% ($17,700) five years after graduation.
Gender earnings differences vary by field of study — in some instances substantially — and increase over time in the vast majority of cases. Of our 51 credential and field of study categories, women earn more than men in only three cases in the first year after graduating. By the fifth year, women earn less than men in every case.
For instance, five years after graduating, female college-level certificate and diploma holders in Education earn about 45% ($28,500) less than their male counterparts. For master’s degree holders in Visual and performing arts, and communication technologies, and Business, management and public administration, women earn 32% less than men ($16,800 and $39,600, respectively). In some fields, however, the differentials are considerably smaller. For bachelor’s degree graduates in Health and related fields, women earn 1.9% ($1,300) less than men.
International students who stay and work in Canada earn less than their Canadian counterparts, but the differences narrow over time.
Across four of the five credentials observed, international students earn between 17% and 38% less than Canadians one year after graduation. However, these differences narrow to between 5% (doctoral degree) and 20% (master’s degree) five years out. Among college-level certificate graduates, international students have similar earnings to Canadian graduates.
Taking graduates at all credential levels together, international students who graduated in 2010 and then stayed and worked in Canada earned 21% ($9,000) less than Canadian graduates one year following graduation.
By field of study, only international students with master’s degrees in Mathematics, computer and information sciences, and Health and related fields earn more than their Canadian counterparts — an additional 7.8% ($5,800) and 6.0% ($4,600) five years after graduating. Two of the largest differences observed are also among master’s degree holders. Master’s graduates in Business, management and public administration, as well as Education, earn 35.5% ($37,800) and 40.0% ($32,400) less than Canadian graduates.
In contrast to the patterns observed by gender, the earnings differences between Canadian and international student graduates tend to narrow over time in relative terms.
Graduates are doing well, on average, but the spread between higher and lower earners is wide and grows over time within each credential.
Credentials with higher average earnings (i.e., professional, doctoral and master’s degrees) are associated with wider distributions of earnings across graduates. The spread between the lowest (10th percentile) and highest (90th percentile) earners is $80,200 for professional degrees, $90,800 for master’s degrees and $94,900 for doctoral degrees in the first year after graduation. In all cases, the absolute gap between the highest and lowest earners increases over time. The difference reaches $126,700 for professional degree holders five years after graduation, and $106,800 and $110,100 for master’s and doctoral degrees.
The spread among college-level certificate and bachelor’s degree graduates rises from approximately $58,100 to $76,100 from the first to the fifth year following graduation. The earnings differential between the highest and lowest college-level diploma holders starts at $46,300 in year one and rises to $65,900, representing the smallest spread among all credentials.
The distributions of earnings across credentials overlap, meaning that — in some cases — graduates with higher average earnings (e.g., doctoral degrees) sometimes earn less than those with credentials with lower average earnings (e.g., bachelor’s degrees). We find similar results at the field of study level: the distributions of earnings again vary quite widely and they overlap.
Forthcoming research will build upon this report to provide additional information to support the decision-making of Canadians.
This report provides new and comprehensive evidence on the early career earnings of Canadian PSE graduates. A forthcoming EPRI-LMIC report will provide a comparable analysis of the earnings of those who complete registered apprenticeship programs. Taken together, these reports and related materials, including the interactive dashboard, will provide expansive new information on the earnings of PSE graduates and apprenticeship completers. This information will help Canadians make the most informed education and training decisions possible.
The ELMLP has a variety of limitations that affect the type of information that can be presented. However, Statistics Canada is working on adding more data to the ELMLP that will allow for a more detailed and extended analysis. This will include the introduction of new data sources, such as the 2016 Census and the Immigration Longitudinal Database (IMDB). Furthermore, as additional years of data are added, the ELMLP will include new cohorts of graduates, allowing them to be followed for increasingly longer intervals, thereby remaining a valuable source of labour market information.
Read or download additional files:
Source:
Research at a Glance is designed to inform the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) community and other interested parties about recently published, policy-relevant research from government, academic and NGO sources. The views expressed in the documents described do not necessarily reflect those of IRCC.
Executive Summary
“Unlike economic and family class immigrants, who mostly make their own choice about where to settle in Canada, the initial geographic location of refugees is strongly influenced by government resettlement programs. Government-assisted refugees (GARs) are assigned to one of many designated communities based on a pre-approved regional quota of refugee allocation and the match between a refugee’s needs and community resources. Privately sponsored refugees (PSRs) are received by their sponsors, who are scattered across the country. While previous research suggests that refugees, especially GARs, are more likely to undertake secondary migration than other immigrants, no large-scale quantitative study has compared the rates of departure from initial destination cities for different immigrant categories in the long term.
This study asks two sets of questions. First, are refugees more likely to leave their initial destination city than economic immigrants when group differences in sociodemographic and contextual characteristics are taken into account? Among refugees, are GARs more likely to leave their initial destination city than PSRs? Second, to what extent does the impact of unemployment on secondary migration vary by admission category? Among refugees, are GARs more likely than PSRs to leave their initial destination city when they experience unemployment?
This study uses the Longitudinal Immigration Database. The analysis focuses on immigrants aged 20 to 54 at the time of landing who arrived in Canada from 2000 to 2014. It follows the immigrants’ mobility status longitudinally from their year of arrival to their 10th year in Canada. Census metropolitan areas (CMAs) and census agglomerations (CAs) are used as geographic units (cities) to measure the immigrants’ secondary migration. This study handles the boundary changes of CMAs and CAs over time by constructing consistent boundaries.
The results show that refugees were more likely to undertake secondary migration than economic immigrants during their first 10 years in Canada. However, the difference was mostly accounted for by the fact that refugees tended to settle initially in smaller cities than economic immigrants. PSRs’ higher propensity to migrate than economic immigrants was fully explained by their tendency to settle in cities other than the Toronto, Montréal and Vancouver CMAs. GARs were slightly more likely to leave their initial destination than economic immigrants and PSRs, even after a number of measurable characteristics were taken into account. Overall, the majority stayed in their initial city of residence, regardless of admission category.
Multivariate analysis indicates that experiencing unemployment in the previous year similarly increased the likelihood of both economic immigrants and GARs leaving their initial destination city. For PSRs, unemployment was not significantly associated with leaving the initial destination city, probably because they were more attached to their adopted community.
The observation that resettled refugees are not substantially different from economic immigrants in their tendency to move away from small cities is noteworthy since many refugees’ initial destinations are not self-chosen. This study’s findings shed light on the geographic mobility of different categories of immigrants and inform discussions regarding appropriate resettlement policies.”
Conclusion and discussion
This study compares the propensity of resettled refugees (government-assisted refugees [GARs] and privately sponsored refugees [PSRs]) and economic immigrants to leave their initial city of destination. Using data from the Longitudinal Immigration Database, this study improves upon previous studies by analyzing the timing of secondary migration of a broader arrival cohort of immigrants (2000 to 2014) at lower levels of geography (census metropolitan areas [CMAs] and census agglomerations [CAs]) for a longer period (the first 10 years after arrival).
The results show that refugees are more likely than economic immigrants to undertake secondary migration during their first 10 years in Canada. However, this is mostly explained by the fact that refugees tend to settle in smaller cities initially. PSRs’ higher propensity to migrate than economic immigrants is fully explained by their tendency to settle in non-gateway cities. GARs are slightly more likely to leave their initial destination than economic immigrants and PSRs, even after a number of measurable characteristics are taken into account.
Event history analysis shows that an experience of unemployment in the previous year similarly increases the likelihood of leaving the initial destination city for both economic immigrants and GARs. For PSRs, unemployment is not significantly associated with leaving the initial destination, probably because PSRs are more attached to their adopted community.
More importantly, the predicted probabilities of secondary migration highlight that, regardless of admission category, the majority of immigrants remain in their initial destination even 10 years after arrival. Previous studies tended to suggest that policies designed to steer immigrants away from gateway cities would be ineffective because immigrants prefer larger cities and have the right to move wherever they want. However, this study’s results show that most new immigrants stay in their initial destination.
The observation that resettled refugees are not substantially different from economic immigrants is particularly noteworthy, given that many refugees’ initial destinations are not self-chosen but assigned by the government. Without this assignment, most refugees would probably never set foot in small cities where they have no economic or social connections.
Overall, the findings are consistent with Åslund’s study (2000) on secondary migration in Sweden: the refugee dispersal policy does not necessarily lead to secondary migration. Most refugees stay in their initial destination city. These findings improve understanding of the mobility of different categories of immigrants, and inform discussions regarding appropriate resettlement policies.
Source:
Research at a Glance is designed to inform the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) community and other interested parties about recently published, policy-relevant research from government, academic and NGO sources. The views expressed in the documents described do not necessarily reflect those of IRCC.
Please take this short survey to help improve the KM4S web site. The survey is anonymous. Thank you for your feedback! (click on the screen anywhere (or on the x in the top right corner) to remove this pop-up)