Theme：Earnings Assimilation in Canada (2006-2021): A Seemingly Unrelated Regression Approach

Guest Speaker：Xingfei Liu (University of Alberta)

Time：December 22nd, 2025(Monday)，10:30-12:00 am

Venue：Room 318, Business School Building

Organizer：The Department of Economics

Guest Bio:

  Xingfei Liu is a Tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Alberta. His research focuses on labour economics, with a concentration on labour force participation, gender wage gaps, and labour market institutions. He has published in international journals such as Quantitative Economics, Canadian Journal of Economics, China Economic Review, and Journal of Population Economics.

Synopsis：

  Using nationally representative data from the Canadian Labour Force Survey, we examine earnings differentials between immigrants and native-born individuals in Canada over the period 2006-2021. We propose a two-step empirical strategy: first, we construct occupational earnings benchmarks based on native-born workers; second, we estimate a Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) model to jointly characterize actual and counterfactual earnings outcomes. This framework allows us to disentangle wage disparities arising from occupational distribution (occupational sorting) from those arising within occupations, thereby capturing both structural and unobserved dimensions of economic assimilation. Our results show that even within the same occupation and after controlling for education, age, and region of origin, immigrants earn significantly less than native-born individuals, although this gap has narrowed modestly among recent immigrant cohorts. Longer time since migration helps improve earnings outcomes, but convergence remains incomplete, particularly for female immigrants from non-European regions. The strong positive correlation between actual earnings and predicted earnings residuals suggests that unobserved productivity and occupational matching are key factors affecting immigrant earnings performance. These findings underscore that observable characteristics alone explain only part of the earnings gap, and highlight the importance of policies aimed at reducing occupational mismatch and supporting equitable integration in Canada’s increasingly diverse labour market.