Journal Article

Using publicly available data, this article aims to understand how immigration policies in Canada and the United States have affected the flow and utilization of highly-skilled migrants from China and India. Reviewing existing literature on the policies about, and utilization of, human capital among highly-skilled migrants, and describing the policy contexts in both receiving countries, we present detailed empirical evidence to show that in spite of their higher education attainment than the general population and the total foreign-born population, China- and India-born migrants are not immune from the brain waste phenomenon. This is especially so among the India-born. We end the article with policy implications for both countries.

Lacking a tradition of settling immigrants and the appropriate infrastructure to integrate them, small- and medium-sized cities often face the challenge of attracting and retaining immigrants. Using a mixed methods approach, this study compares the experiences of immigrant and non-immigrant entrepreneurs in a mid-sized Canadian city, Kelowna, British Columbia. A survey reveals different experiences between these two groups, with immigrants facing more challenges. In the absence of institutionally complete communities or strong ethnic economies, immigrants do not rely extensively on their own community resources, an element considered instrumental for immigrant business development in large cities. Compared to non-immigrants, immigrant entrepreneurs have a more optimistic outlook on doing business in Kelowna; this is encouraging for a city trying hard to attract immigrant investment. Key informants recommended transforming the city into a more welcoming community, establishing appropriate support infrastructure, and removing potential institutional offsets. This paper adds new theoretical insights to the literature on immigrant entrepreneurship; all socio-cultural, political-institutional, and economic-structural considerations are embedded in geography. The findings also have implications for growth strategies in small- and medium-sized cities.

Purpose: Many employers lack disability confidence regarding how to include people with disabilities in the workforce, which can lead to stigma and discrimination. The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of disability confidence from two perspectives, employers who hire people with a disability and employees with a disability. Design/methodology/approach: A qualitative thematic analysis was conducted using 35 semi-structured interviews (18 employers who hire people with disabilities; 17 employees with a disability). Findings: Themes included the following categories: disability discomfort (i.e. lack of experience, stigma and discrimination); reaching beyond comfort zone (i.e. disability awareness training, business case, shared lived experiences); broadened perspectives (i.e. challenging stigma and stereotypes, minimizing bias and focusing on abilities); and disability confidence (i.e. supportive and inclusive culture and leading and modeling social change). The results highlight that disability confidence among employers is critical for enhancing the social inclusion of people with disabilities. Originality/value: The study addresses an important gap in the literature by developing a better understanding of the concept of disability from the perspectives of employers who hire people with disabilities and also employees with a disability.

In this article, the authors examine patterns of economic exclusion in Canada's labor market in 2000 and 2010. Using Canada's Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics data, the authors devise a unique Economic Exclusion Index to capture disparities in income, employment precarity, and wealth. The authors find evidence of persistent disadvantage tied to immigrant status, race, and gender in Canada's labor market; specifically, individuals identified as Black, South Asian and Arab, as well as recent immigrants and women, fare worst. The authors conclude that there is a need for structural changes that enable disadvantaged groups to move toward economic inclusion in Canada's labor market.

PURPOSE: Many clinicians, educators, and employers lack disability confidence which can affect their interactions with, and inclusion of people with disabilities. Our objective was to explore how disability confidence developed among youth who volunteered with children who have a disability. METHODS: We conducted 30 in-depth interviews (16 without a disability, 14 with disabilities), with youth aged 15-25. We analyzed our data using an interpretive, qualitative, thematic approach. RESULTS: We identified four main themes that led to the progression of disability confidence including: (1) disability discomfort referring to lacking knowledge about disability and experiencing unease around people with disabilities; (2) reaching beyond comfort zone" where participants increased their understanding of disability and became sensitized to difference; (3) "broadened perspectives" where youth gained exposure to people with disabilities and challenged common misperceptions and stereotypes; and (4) "disability confidence" which includes having knowledge of people with disabilities inclusive and positive attitudes towards them. CONCLUSIONS: Volunteering is one way that can help to develop disability confidence. Youth with and without disabilities both reported a similar process of developing disability confidence; however there were nuances between the two groups. Implications for Rehabilitation The development of disability confidence is important for enhancing the social inclusion of people with disabilities. Volunteering with people who have a disability or a disability different from their own can help to develop disability confidence which involves positive attitudes empathy and appropriate communication skills. Clinicians educators and employers should consider promoting working with disabled people through such avenues as volunteering or service learning to gain disability confidence.

Through the use of a social exclusion framework and analysis of recent data from the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (2009), a national longitudinal database, this empirical research investigates the mechanisms through which social groups are made and socio-economic outcomes are determined in Canada today. Our objective is to explore and describe the social characteristics and personal attributes that intersect to direct divergent economic realities. To this end, we initially present a brief review of the social exclusion literature, as well as descriptive data on several aspects of age and immigration. This is followed by logistic regressions for five dimensions of eco- nomic exclusion, to examine who is made socially excluded in economic terms in Canada. Subsequently, to progress the analysis from a focus on the individual effects of specific social attributes, we calculate the combined odds of two dimensions of economic exclusion (low individ- ual earnings and insecure employment) for eight prototypes of individuals, to highlight the inter- secting effects of social dynamics related to age, gender, visible minority status and immigrant status, and to ultimately explore who gets ahead and who falls behind in the Canadian labour mar- ket. We conclude with a discussion of policy and research implications.

International test scores are used to proxy the quality of source country educational outcomes and explain differences in the rate of return to schooling among immigrants in Canada. The average quality of educational outcomes in an immigrant's source country and the rate of return to schooling in the host country labor market are found to have a strong and positive association. However, in contrast to those who completed their education pre-immigration, immigrants who arrived at a young age are not influenced by this educational quality measure. Also, the results are not much affected when the source country's GDP per capita and other nation-level characteristics are used as control variables. Together, these observations reinforce the argument that the quality of educational outcomes has explanatory power for labor market outcomes. The effects are strongest for males and for females without children.

This paper seeks to explain the self-reported business performance of entrepreneurs who entered Canada through the Business Immigration Programme. The study draws upon a detailed face-to-face questionnaire with 90 entrepreneurs in Vancouver, a third each from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea. As suggested by the mixed-embeddedness model, state regulations provided a significant context for the economic actions of immigrant entrepreneurs. But opportunities were also narrowed by a perceived precariousness in the regional market. Overall, business performance was weak for entrepreneurs, despite significant pre-migration resources. Some factors regarded as encouraging entrepreneurialism were also important in shaping business outcomes. Human capital, though not the scale of investment capital, influenced business success. Consistent with European research, the ethnic enclave economy imposed a penalty on outcomes. Inter-ethnic variation was significant, with Korean-Canadians, who disproportionately sought mainstream markets, by far the most successful of the three groups. In addition they were less involved in transnational business activities, which seemed to compete with, rather than complement, Canadian enterprise.

This article empirically explores how the often reported relationship between educational mismatches and wages can best be understood. Exploiting the newly published Programme for International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) data, we are able to achieve a better estimation of the classical Duncan and Hoffman ORU model than previous papers by controlling for heterogeneity of observable skills. Our findings suggest that (i) a considerable part of the effect of educational mismatches can be attributed to skills heterogeneity, and (ii) that the extent to which skills explain educational mismatches varies by institutional contexts, particularly the extent to which collective wage bargaining is regulated. These observations suggest that skills matter for explaining wage effects of education and educational mismatches, but also that the extent to which this is the case depends on collective wage bargaining.