"The Self-Employment Experience of Immigrants to Canada"

"The Self-Employment Experience of Immigrants to Canada" Herbert J. Schuetze Department of Economics, University of Victoria Victoria, BC E-Mail: hschuetz@uvic.ca October 2005 Abstract: This study uutilizes an empirical approach, similar to the large number of studies examining immigrant earnings in the wage sector, to study self-employment propensities of immigrants arriving in Canada. The goals of the paper are to establish the key features of the self-employment experiences of immigrants and to shed light on the impacts of available immigration policy mechanisms on these outcomes. I find that the assimilation process involves a transition from wage employment to self-employment and that this process is not stable over time. The changes in the assimilation process coincide with policy developments over the period examined (roughly 1956-1996) and suggest that these policy changes may have resulted in higher self-employment propensities upon entry, while at the same time, a reduction in the amount of assimilation and the time frame over which assimilation occurred. However, over the long-run (measured in years since migration) it appears that there was no appreciable effect of these policies. JEL classification: J15, J18, J23. Keywords: self-employment, immigration Funding for this research was provided by SSHRC (grant # 410-2003-1823) and a research grant from Metropolis RIIM. I am grateful to Janice Chow and Hui Feng for competent research assistance. I am solely responsible for any omissions or errors.

1. Introduction Self-employment represents a considerable fraction of the labour market activity of Canadian immigrants. Census data show that in 1995 over 15 percent of prime-aged Canadian immigrant workers were self-employed. The importance of immigrants as a source of entrepreneurial capital has not gone unnoticed by policy-makers. In 1978 in Canada, a second group of immigrant workers was added to the skilled worker entry category with the creation of the business class entry program. The stated goal of the business class program was to spark economic activity in Canada by attracting entrepreneurial talent and/or investor funds. Indeed, Canada is not alone in attempting to attract entrepreneurs. Immigration policies in Australia and Germany, as examples, include special visas and entry requirements that facilitate immigration by would-be entrepreneurs. Perhaps because of the importance of self-employment among immigrants, a number of research studies have attempted to identify the reasons for the high incidence of this labour market activity among immigrants compared to natives. A number of researchers have suggested that cultural factors related to one s country of origin may provide an advantage to immigrants in self-employment and help to explain their higher propensities towards self-employment. Diversity in traditions of commerce (Light, 1984), in the ability to supply ethnic goods and services (Light and Rosenstein, 1995), and attitudes towards entrepreneurship that are related to one s religion (Carrol and Mosakowski, 1987; Rafiq, 1992; and Clark and Drinkwater, 2000) have all been suggested as possible cultural advantages in self-employment. However, empirical support for the hypothesis that self-employment rates among immigrant groups are

correlated with home-country self-employment rates has been mixed. While Yeungert (1995) found that immigrants from countries with high self-employment rates are more likely to become self-employed in the U.S., Fairlie and Meyer (1996) found no correlation. Another hypothesis related to ethnic advantage suggests that the presence of ethnic concentrations or enclaves in the host country create opportunities for potential immigrant entrepreneurs. It is argued that ethnic enclaves provide its members with greater access to capital through the pooling of investment resources (Light, 1972), a supply of local labour (Light and Bonacich, 1988), and consumers with tastes for goods that ethnic entrepreneurs are better positioned to provide (Aldrich et al., 1985). However, evidence for such an enclave effect has also been mixed. As Parker (2004: 121-122) points out, while some studies find that the presence and size of ethnic enclaves positively impacts the probability of self-employment among its members (Le, 2000; Flota and Mora, 2001; and Lofstrom, 2002), many do not (Borjas and Bronars, 1989; Yuengert, 1995; Razin and Langlois, 1996; Clark and Drinkwater, 1998, 2000, and 2002). Even within studies there is not consensus. For example, Borjas (1986) and Boyd (1990) find support for an enclave effect among some ethnic groups but not others. In contrast to the above hypotheses, there are a number of researchers who argue that the high rates of immigrant self-employment result not because of an endowed advantage in self-employment, but because immigrants are disadvantaged in the wage employment sector. These researchers argue that ethnic minorities faced with discrimination from employers in the wage and salary sector turn to self-employment as a way to advance in such segmented labour markets (Light, 1972; Sowell, 1981; Moore,

1983, Min, 1984; Phizacklea, 1988; Metcalf, Modood and Virdee, 1996; Mata and Pendakur, 1998; Li, 1998; Wong and Ng, 2002). Despite the rather large literature explaining differences in the levels of selfemployment, however, relatively few studies have examined the process of entry into self-employment by immigrants or the factors that influence this process. Studies by Li (2001a, 2001b) and Frenette (2002), using Canadian data, and Borjas (1986) and Lofstrom (2002), using US data, examine the transition into self-employment by immigrants to the two countries. However, because these studies are limited to a single country over a short period of time they do not provide much insight into the role of immigration policy in the process of becoming self-employed 1 a topic of focus in this paper. A recent paper by Antecol and Schuetze (2005), which most closely resembles the current study, focuses on self-employment outcomes of immigrants across three countries; Australia, Canada and the United States. Unlike Antecol and Schuetze (2005) the focus in the current study is on the effects of changes in immigration policy over time within Canada using outcome in the US as a comparator. More specifically, the goals of this paper are twofold. The first goal is to establish the key features of the self-employment experiences of immigrants to Canada. In particular, utilising Canadian Census data an empirical approach, similar to the relatively large number of studies examining immigrant outcomes in the wage sector 2, is used to examine the self-employment outcomes of immigrants. Given the stated goal of the immigrant business program to attract entrepreneurial immigrants to Canada, unlike 1 One further concern with Li (2001a and 2001b) is that the nature of the data used does not allow him to control for secular changes in self-employment, which may confound the underlying transition rates. 2 See, for example, Baker and Benjamin, 1994, and Bloom, Grenier, and Gunderson, 1995, on Canada, Borjas, 1995, and Funkhouser and Trejo, 1998, on the US.

the wage sector studies which concentrate on earnings outcomes, the focus here is on the path into self-employment among immigrants. Therefore, the primary outcome of interest is whether or not immigrants choose self-employment (the propensity towards self-employment). Because cross-section studies on immigrant outcomes confound secular changes in cohort outcomes with the within-cohort business start-up process 3, pairs of data files are used to perform an empirical decomposition that allows identification of assimilation patterns (changes in self-employment incidence within an arrival cohort) for comparison across immigrant cohorts of different vintages. In addition, changes in self-employment propensities across cohorts with the same number of years in Canada are identified to determine the effects of the recent declines in immigrant cohort outcomes in the wage sector. The method used allows for identification of the performance of self-employed immigrants relative to some base group (primarily selfemployed natives). However, it has been shown that the results of similar analyses in the wage sector are sensitive to the choice of base group (Lalonde and Topel 1992, Baker and Benjamin 1994). Therefore, a number of different base groups, including earlier arrival cohorts, will be used for comparison. The second goal is to shed light on the impacts of available immigration policy mechanisms on self-employment outcomes among immigrants to Canada. To achieve this, the timing of changes in Canadian immigration policy, such as the introduction of the Canadian Points System and the acceptance of Business Class immigrants, is compared to changes in immigrant self-employment outcomes. This is made possible by examining immigrant self-employment outcomes across a number of years of Canadian Census data from 1971 to 1995. In addition to examining changes in policy within 3 See, for example, Borjas (1985) or LaLonde and Topel (1992).

Canada, I repeat the analysis using Census data from the United States between 1970 and 2000. Comparison of immigrant self-employment outcomes in Canada to those in the US, whose immigration policies and experiences differ significantly from Canada s, provides significant insights into the effectiveness of policy. The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 outlines the relevant policy developments in Canada over the period examined and highlights important differences between Canadian and US policies relevant to immigrant selfemployment outcomes. Section 3 depicts the empirical strategy used to identify the key elements of immigrants self-employment experience and Section 4 describes the data and estimation results. Finally, Section 5 concludes the paper. 2. Policy Background This section provides a brief overview of some of the more salient developments in Canada s immigration policy and compares Canadian immigration policy to that of the United States. Particular attention is given to those policy changes/differences that are likely relevant to self-employment outcomes among immigrants and to the period in which cohort assimilation profiles can be determined from the available data (roughly 1956-1996). For a more exhaustive history of Canada s immigration policy see, for example, Green and Green (1992) and for a comparison between Canadian and US policy see Borjas (1993). Within Canada over the relevant time frame one can identify two points in time during which there were significant policy developments that directly or indirectly may have affected self-employment outcomes among immigrants. The first, well known,

major change in Canadian policy occurred in the 1960 s. Over this period the right to sponsor family members for immigration to Canada was extended to immigrants from non-traditional source countries and in 1967 the points system was introduced. The points system afforded a new class of non-sponsored immigrants to Canada (skilled workers) that was somewhat objectively evaluated on the basis of skills. The sponsorship of immigrant family members from non-traditional source countries and the newly developed class of independent immigrants led to a significant change in the composition of immigrant cohorts arriving in Canada. Green (1995) shows that a shift in the source regions of immigrants occurred subsequent to these changes and suggests that the impacts of these policies were most evident among cohorts arriving after 1970. In particular, he finds that the composition of immigrants was increasingly comprised of immigrants from Asia after 1970 as opposed to the more traditional regions of Western Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States. Not surprisingly, it has also been shown that the composition in terms of labour market characteristics changed over this period; most notably the skill level of immigrants arriving after 1970 increased relative to prior cohorts (Borjas, 1993). While it is clear that these shifts in composition likely had impacts on the selfemployment outcomes of immigrants, the precise nature of these impacts is unclear. Given that immigrant cohorts were increasingly comprised of visible minorities one might expect that self-employment propensities among cohorts arriving after 1970 would have increased. In addition, given that previous research shows that education or skill level is positively correlated with the probability of self-employment in the overall population, increases in skill level among immigrants arriving after 1970 may have also

led to increases in self-employment. However, the probability of self-employment may also be affected by the level of self-employment in the source country and the presence of ethnic enclaves in the receiving country. Thus, it is unclear in which direction these changes likely shifted immigrant self-employment rates. A second relevant change in immigration policy occurred in 1978, when a second category of skilled workers was added with the creation of the business class of immigrants. The stated goal of the new legislation was to spark economic activity in Canada by attracting entrepreneurial talent and/or investor funds. To this end, three subcategories of business class immigrants were eventually developed. Initially, these included the entrepreneur and self-employment streams. In 1986 the third investor stream was added. While these programs have undergone a good deal of fine-tuning since their inception, the primary difference between immigrants applying under the business class and other skilled workers is the criteria that are used to assess their skills and the threshold required to be granted entry. Increased weight is placed on prior experience (business experience) for all business class immigrants and on the availability of investment funds for those entering under the investor and entrepreneur categories. The minimum number of points required for immigrants entering under the business class are also significantly lower than those required for entry under the other skilled worker category (in 2003, only 35 points out of a possible 100 were required of business class immigrants compared to 75 points among other skilled workers). To help illustrate the differences between the three streams in the business class the following lists some of the program requirements as of 2003. Immigrants entering under the investor stream must make a CDN $400,000 investment that is used by the

provinces for economic development and job creation 4. There is no requirement for investors to run a business. However, immigrants entering under the entrepreneur and self-employment streams must own and manage a business in Canada. What primarily distinguishes these two streams is the fact that those entering under the entrepreneur program must create at least one full-time job equivalent for Canadian citizens or permanent residents for a period of at least one year within three years of arrival in Canada. The self-employed need only provide work for themselves. Figure 1 illustrates the percent of total immigration that is comprised of business immigration in Canada for the period 1980 to 2001. While immigrants were slow to respond to this policy change, by the late 1980 s a significant number of immigrants were entering Canada annually under the business class program. Between 1980 and 1986 Canada received an annual inflow of nearly 6,000 business class immigrants; accounting for an average of 6 percent of overall immigration. By the late 1980 s and early 1990 s the number of business class immigrants had increased to over 15,000 annually increasing their proportion of overall immigration to 9 percent. This number had doubled by 1993 to more than 30,000 immigrants and accounted for 13 percent of immigration 5. Thus, there was substantial growth in the representation of business immigrants over the period examined. Given that many of the immigrants entering under this program were required to maintain a business of some form upon entry to Canada, one would expect that this policy likely led to increases in self-employment propensities among immigrants, particularly in the first few years after migration. 4 Program requirements can be found on the CIC web page: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/irpa/fsbusiness.html. 5 These figures are derived from published numbers in Employment and Immigration Canada, Immigration Statistics Cat. No. mp 22-1, various years.

Finally, as noted above, the analysis that follows exploits important differences between Canadian and U.S. immigration policies to help identify the role of such policy in immigrant self-employment outcomes. In contrast to the Canadian point system, discussed above, which focuses on the skills of potential immigrants, U.S. immigration policy in recent decades has placed greater emphasis on family reunification. As a result, the composition of US immigrants differs substantially from that of Canadian immigrants over the period examined. Of significance, is the relative differential in skill level (measured by years of education) between immigrants and natives across the two countries. As Borjas (1993) shows, immigrants to the U.S. have fewer years of schooling than native workers, whereas immigrants to Canada are, on average, more highly educated. These differences highlight the benefits of comparing the immigrant assimilation process. 3. Empirical Framework Adopting the framework developed by Borjas (1986), the following crosssectional self-employment probability equation can be estimated by probit for the group of employed immigrants: (1) P = Φ( β + δ ) ' t X t t K kt k where P t is the probability of self-employment in year t, X t is a vector of observable characteristics related to the self-employment decision, Φ is the normal cumulative distribution function, k indexes a series of five-year arrival cohorts identified by the earliest year of arrival among those in the cohort, and the δ k,t are cohort-year specific intercepts.

Estimation of the assimilation process in terms of business start-up using the coefficient estimates of the δ k,t from equation (1) are unreliable if there exist time varying cohort specific fixed effects that impact the probability of self-employment. Baker and Benjamin (1994) find that more recent cohorts of immigrants to Canada have poorer earnings outcomes in the wage sector than earlier cohorts. If these changes in immigrant quality affect self-employment earnings differently, the use of single cross-section will not be appropriate. Instead, estimates of assimilation which are free of this potential fixed effect bias and identification of the effects of changes in cohort quality on the selfemployment decision can be obtained using quasi-panel methods. Thus, equation 1 is estimated at two points in time (year t and t+10). While the Canadian Census files are conducted in five year intervals the decision was made to examine ten year intervals. This was done to be consistent with the comparative analysis carried out using US Census data, which is conducted only every ten years. The decomposition of the cross-section change in the probability of selfemployment can be stated as follows. Consider the predicted probability of selfemployment for a cohort group k in year t+10 evaluated at the average values of immigrant characteristics in that year ( X ). This probability is given by: (2) Pˆ Φ( X ˆ β ˆ δ ) k, t+ 10 = t+ 10 + k, t+ 10 For this same cohort, the predicted probability of self-employment in year t evaluated at X (i.e. at the average characteristics of immigrants in year t+10) is: (3) Pˆ = Φ( X ˆ β + ˆ δ ) k, t t k, t The predicted probability of the cohort in year t+10 that has the same number of years since migration as cohort k in year t, evaluated at X is

(4) Pˆ Φ( X ˆ β ˆ δ ) k + 10, t+ 10 = t+ 10 + k + 10, t+ 10 Given the definitions in equations 2 and 4 the cross section change in the selfemployment propensity over ten years from census year t+10 is equal to P ˆ ˆ k, t+ 10 Pk + 10, t+ 10. Following Borjas (1985) this change can be decomposed into two components as follows: (5) P ˆ Pˆ = ( Pˆ Pˆ ) + ( Pˆ Pˆ ) k, t+ 10 k + 10, t+ 10 k, t+ 10 k, t k, t k + 10, t+ 10 The first term on the right-hand side of equation 5 gives the change in the probability of self-employment experienced by cohort k over the ten year period. In other words, it gives the quasi-panel estimate of assimilation 6. The second term gives the difference in the probability of self-employment between two cohorts with the same number of years since migration. This difference provides an estimate of the impact of changes in cohort quality on the propensity to choose self-employment. It will be negative if more recent cohorts are more likely to choose self-employment (for example, if wage employment outcomes are worse relative to self-employment for more recent cohorts). These estimates will be biased if there are unobserved time effects (other than assimilation) that change over the ten year period. This is likely the case given the recent trends in self-employment in Canada. A common solution in the literature is to normalize the changes in immigrant outcomes to some base group (n). Borjas (1986) normalizes changes in the self-employment propensities among immigrants utilizing native workers as a base group. However, Baker and Benjamin (1994) examine immigrant earnings assimilation in the wage and salary sector for Canada and show that 6 For this estimate of assimilation to be unbiased it must be assumed that cohort specific fixed effects are equal across time. This may not be true in this setting if, for example, the composition of the cohort changes through the remigration of immigrants based on skills.

the results are sensitive to the choice of base group. Thus, I experiment with a number of different base groups, including native workers and previous cohorts of immigrants. Suppose that for base group, n, in year, t, the following probit equation determines the probability of self-employment. ' (6) P = Φ( X θ ) n, t t t Thus, the predicted probability of self-employment for a member of the base group with similar characteristics as the average immigrant (at t+10) is given by: ˆ n, t (7) P = Φ( Xθ ) t The quasi-panel decomposition can be normalized as follows. (8) P ˆ Pˆ = [( Pˆ Pˆ ) ( Pˆ Pˆ )] + [( Pˆ Pˆ ) ( Pˆ Pˆ )] k, t+ 10 k + 10, t+ 10 k, t+ 10 k, t n, t+ 10 n, t k, t k + 10, t+ 10 n, t n, t+ 10 Here, the first term on the right-hand side of equation 8 gives the estimate of within cohort self-employment growth for a representative immigrant net of changes in the probability of self-employment for a representative individual with similar characteristics from the base group over the ten-year period. Similarly, the second term provides an estimate of the difference in the probability of self-employment between two cohorts with the same number of years since migration net of changes in this probability for a similar individual from the base group. 4. Estimation and Results The primary data used in the analysis are drawn from the Canadian Census Public Use Microdata Files conducted in 1971, 1981, 1986, 1991 and 1996. The 1976 data file was omitted because information on the year of immigration was not collected. The data files are pooled across pairs of Census files which were conducted across 10 years

intervals (1971-81, 1981-91, and 1986-96). For comparison, the analysis is repeated using data drawn from the US Census 1970 1/100, 5 percent SMSA and County Group file, and the 1980, 1990 and 2000 public use A samples, which contain 5 percent random 7 samples of the population. The pooled years for the US are 1970-80, 1980-90, and 1990-2000. While not ideal, the use of Census data in this context is the best possible approach. Currently available panel data on Canadian immigrants, while useful in a number of settings, do not include information on native outcomes. In all cases the samples are restricted to males who are employed in the survey week (the week prior to the survey), who are not in the armed forces and not in school in the survey week. Because of the prevalence of self-employment in the agricultural sector among non-immigrants and the recent decline of that sector in North America the samples are further restricted to individuals employed in non-agricultural industries 8. To control for aging within cohorts across each of the ten-year time frames the samples are restricted to individuals aged 18 to 54 in year t and to those aged 28 to 64 in year t+10. Because detailed information on year of arrival for immigrants in regions determined to have too few observations to protect confidentiality, data drawn from the Canadian census files is restricted to Quebec, Ontario and the Western Provinces. Due to the large sample sizes of the of the US census data, 40 percent random samples of non-immigrants were taken. Weights were applied throughout the calculations to the US samples that account for the unbalanced samples taken and the fact that the 1990 Census was a nonrandom sample of the population. 7 The one exception is the 1990 A sample. See the discussion below. 8 Agricultural industries include agricultural production and services, forestry, fishing, hunting and trapping.

In order to derive the decompositions suggested by equations 5 and 8 it is necessary to estimate the probit models of the probability of self-employment for immigrants and the base group as indicated in equations 1 and 6 for the years t and t+10. The self-employment indicator used in these probit equations is based on the class of worker variables in the various census files 9. The definition of self-employed includes individuals who indicate that they work for themselves in incorporated or unincorporated businesses and those in professional practices. The self-employed definition excludes unpaid family workers. In identifying demographic and economic variables that influence the relative returns in the two sectors to include in the analysis I am guided by previous research using Canadian and US data on the determinants of self-employment 10. I include age as a quadratic, indicator variables for the level of education achieved, indicator variables for marital status and controls for source country of immigrants. Age has been found to have a positive effect on the probability of selfemployment. This relationship might be explained by the fact that older workers are more likely to have accumulated entrepreneurial abilities, business links and savings or capital necessary for self-employment. An increase in educational attainment is also often found to be positively associated with self-employment perhaps because of the skills necessary to succeed. Previous research indicates that married men are more likely to be self-employed than those in other marital status categories. This is likely because married men are more likely to be in a family with a second income and fringe benefits that extend coverage to the entire family. Finally, given the substantial changes in the 9 These variables are the same across years within census files and are very similar across the Canadian and US censuses. 10 See, for example, Fairlie and Meyer (1998), Schuetze (2000), and Kuhn and Schuetze (2001)

composition of immigrants to Canada over the period examined which are documented in Baker and Benjamin (1994) it is important to control for place of birth 11. To make the decomposition more tractable, I place some constraints on the coefficients. In particular, I restrict the coefficients on the demographic and economic variables to be the same across years for immigrants and natives such that; β t =β t+10 =β and θ t =θ t+10 =θ. In other words, I allow the impacts of these variables to differ across immigrants and natives but restrict them to be the same within these groups across the 10-year period examined. With these assumptions the various decompositions, each with a different base group, can be derived using the pooled data files from the estimation of a single equation by interacting the coefficients with indicator variables for survey year and immigration status. This is possible because the base groups used in the analysis are comprised of either native workers or cohorts of earlier immigrants. To overcome the classic problem of distinguishing between cohort, age and period effects I impose the identifying restriction (common to the literature) that the period effect is the same for immigrants and the base group 12. The regression results for the various pairs of data are presented in appendix Table 1. Because the coefficient estimates are similar to those found in previous studies, I will not elaborate on these here. As a first step in identifying the process of assimilation into self-employment and to help motivate the decomposition analysis that follows, I present estimates of the crosssection assimilation constructed from the year of arrival cohort indicators for year t+10 in 11 It should also be noted that, following several studies from the immigration literature on wage earnings outcomes which find age at immigration to be important determinants, the analysis was redone including age at arrival. These results (available from the author) do not differ substantially from those below. 12 In essence, the period effect is estimated from natives, and this information is used to identify cohort and assimilation effects for immigrants.

each of the samples 13 in Table 1. Standard errors for the assimilation estimates in this and the remaining tables are derived through the method of bootstrapping 14. The crosssection estimates provided in Table 1 give the estimated change in the self-employment rate over several overlapping ten-year periods of assimilation. For example, using the 1981 cross-section it is estimated that the probability of self-employment in the first ten years in Canada increases by 3.6 percentage points. This estimate is derived as the difference between the predicted probabilities of self-employment between an immigrant in the 1966-1970 cohort and a similar immigrant in the 1976-1980 cohort. Ignoring potential cohort specific differences among immigrants, the results suggest that the assimilation process is quite unstable across years. In particular, there appears to be a substantial difference in the business start-up process derived from the 1981 cross-section and those derived from the 1991 and 1996 cross-sections. There is a significant increase in the self-employment propensities in the first and subsequent tenyear periods in the 1981 census while only the first ten year period in the 1991 census shows significant growth. The cross-section results for 1996 do not show significant increases in self-employment even in the first ten years after arrival. The instability of these cross-section results is, as I will show, indicative of substantial changes in cohort specific self-employment outcomes. The self-employment assimilation profiles of immigrants net of these cohort effects are derived using the decomposition given by equation 5 and the three pairs of 13 These estimates are derived from the coefficient estimates presented in appendix table 1 and, therefore, differ slightly from those that would be derived from a simple cross-sectional regression estimated using only the t+10 data. This is because of the restrictions placed on the coefficients that are noted above. 14 This method was chosen over the use of the Delta Method for ease of calculation and because the bootstrap method provides more reliable estimates in this setting. The bootstrap estimates were generated specifying the number of replications to be 1000 and drawing bootstrap samples equal in size to those of the original sample.

data files. Before examining the results of these decompositions, Table 2 highlights some of the trends in predicted outcomes derived from the coefficient estimates. In particular, the first two rows provide the predicted probability of self-employment for each year for a native worker and an immigrant with the average characteristics of an immigrant in year t+10 in each of the data pairs, respectively. In addition, the columns in row three of the table give the predicted self-employment rate gap between a representative immigrant from the most recent arrival cohorts in each year and a similar native. Consistent with overall trends in self-employment in Canada these results show secular growth in self-employment among these representative natives and immigrants. In almost all years the predicted probability of self-employment for the representative immigrant is greater than that for a similar native. The one exception is 1970; where the predicted self-employment rates are about equal. While overall predicted rates of selfemployment are generally higher among immigrants than natives, this is not true for immigrants upon first arrival. The entry gap is negative and statistically significant in all years except 1996. In fact, this gap narrows throughout the period, with significant tightening over the 1971-81 and 1986-86 periods, and ends the period insignificantly different from zero. Taken together, these findings suggest that immigrant s selfemployment propensities increase with years in Canada and/or that previous cohorts of immigrants had higher rates of self-employment. To sort between these two explanations Table 3 presents decompositions of the 1981, 1991 and 1996 cross-section assimilation profiles into estimates of assimilation net of cohort effects, within cohort effects, and estimates of the effects of changes in cohort quality, across cohort effects. The results suggest that, once cohort fixed effects are

taken into account, cohorts in all three ten-year periods examined experienced significant increases in self-employment propensities with years in Canada. In other words, secular changes in the composition of immigrant cohorts which have lead to increases in selfemployment propensities among immigrants with similar years in Canada bias the crosssection assimilation growth estimates downward. To help illustrate this point, consider the cohort of immigrants that arrived between 1981 and 1985 (the 81 cohort group) observed in the 1986 census, upon arrival, and ten years after arrival in 1996. As is indicated by the entry in the third column and last row of Table 2, this cohort experienced no statistically significant change in self-employment propensity over the first ten years in Canada using the cross-section estimate of assimilation. However, the decomposition given in the last two columns and last row of Table 3 shows that between 1986 and 1996 the probability of selfemployment increased by 8 percentage points within this cohort. Compared to the 91 cohort upon arrival to Canada in the 1996 census, the self-employment propensity of the 81 cohort at arrival in the 1986 census is 6.4 percentage points lower. Thus, the across cohort change all but wipes out the within cohort change in the cross-section estimate. Looking across the pairs of census years, an interesting pattern of assimilation is observed. In all years, while it appears that self-employment propensities increase within cohorts of all vintages, the within cohort increases in self-employment propensities are higher among the most recent arrival cohorts than among cohorts with more potential Canadian labour market experience. Thus, if it is indeed the case that immigrants assimilate into self-employment, it appears that this process is accelerated in the first ten to fifteen years after arrival. Before deriving any conclusions, however, the analysis

must control for general trends in self-employment outcomes. The changes observed in Table 3 may simply reflect an overall trend in employment compensation that makes selfemployment more attractive. Table 4 provides estimates of the decomposition in equation 8, which controls for secular trends in self-employment propensities among a comparison group. Following previous research examining the wage sector 15, three base groups are used in separate decompositions. The first comparison group is that of natives and implies the typical definition of assimilation (growth in excess of the native population). The second base group is a fixed cohort of prior immigrant arrivals (those prior to 1955 in the 1971-81 analysis, prior to 1960 in the 1981-91 analysis, and prior to 1965 in the 1986-1996 analysis). Here, assimilation of immigrants is defined relative to a particular group of previous immigrants. The final comparison group is a group of prior arrivals with a fixed number of years in Canada. In all years the comparison group is comprised of immigrants with more than twenty years in Canada. This approach has the advantage of holding the point on the assimilation profile among immigrants in the base group fixed. The results in Table 4 are presented for each of the base groups in separate panels. It appears that, unlike previous studies on wage outcomes, the choice of base group has little impact on the results here examining choice of labour market sector. Despite small differences in the magnitudes, the general patterns of assimilation and across cohort changes in self-employment are very similar regardless of base group chosen. The overall effect of normalizing the results is to dampen both the within and across cohort effects. In fact, a number of the entries in Table 4 are small in magnitude 15 The base groups are chosen based on the approaches taken in Borjas (1985), LaLonde and Topel (1992), and subsequently taken in Baker and Benjamin (1994).

and statistically insignificant. This suggests that much of the growth in self-employment within cohorts and across cohorts with similar years since migration, which was identified in Table 3, is explained by a secular rise in the probability of self-employment. There are, however, some interesting exceptions to this general finding. First, there is evidence of significant increases in the propensity towards self-employment net of secular trends across cohorts at the time of entry into Canada between 1971-1981 and 1986-1996. These across cohort increases, which are approximately three percentage points each, account fully for the decreases in the entry gap found in Table 2 over these two periods. No similar increases are found across immigrants entering between 1980 and 1990 or across immigrants with more time in Canada in any of the time periods examined. Second, it appears that as immigrants integrate into the Canadian labour market the relative returns to self-employment increase 16. Much of this assimilation, particularly since the 1980 s, appears to occur in the first ten to fifteen years after arrival. The estimated rates of assimilation, net of economy-wide secular changes, among the most recent arrivals in each of the three periods are larger in magnitude and more likely to be statistically significant than earlier arrival cohorts. In addition, the magnitudes of the increases in self-employment propensities experienced among immigrant cohorts in their first ten to fifteen years in Canada are substantial. For example, focusing on the first columns of each panel (outcomes relative to those among natives), the results show that immigrant self-employment rates caught up to or overtook those of similar natives in the 16 It was pointed out that the within increases in self-employment may be explained by a transition from unemployment directly into self-employment. In order to examine this possibility I redid the analysis; restricting attention to those who were not employed or self-employed. The results do not support this hypothesis.

first ten to fifteen years after arrival. For example, the 76 immigrant cohort, which was the most recent arrival cohort in 1981, experienced an estimated increase in the selfemployment rate net of secular increases in this same rate among natives of five percentage points between 1981 and 1991. This compares to a negative gap between this cohort and natives in 1981 of just over two percentage points and implies that by 1991 the rate of self-employment for this cohort was nearly three percentage points higher than a similar native. Third, there appears to be a significant change in the assimilation process as observed across the 1971-81 censuses compared to that observed in the post 1981 periods examined. In particular, the results looking across 1971-81 suggest that, unlike more recent cohorts, immigrant cohorts that arrived prior to 1966 experienced significant increases in self-employment net of secular trends well beyond their first ten to fifteen years in Canada. For instance, the 61 cohort, which would have experienced their second decade in Canada between 1971 and 1981, saw a net increase in self-employment of four percentage points. A similar increase occurred over this period among those in the 56 cohort who, therefore, continued to assimilate up until twenty-five years after arrival. This compares to a process in which assimilation is observed primarily in the first ten to fifteen years after arrival in the 1981-91 period. There is evidence that propensity towards self-employment net of secular increases among the 71 cohort continued to rise up until twenty years after arrival over the 1981-91 period. However, the rate of growth among these immigrants is generally much lower. Another change in the assimilation process between the 1981-91 and 1986-96 periods led to a pattern in

which assimilation occurred only in the first ten to fifteen years after arrival between 1986-96. To demonstrate these changes figures 1 through 3 illustrate the predicted assimilation profiles of immigrants using natives as the base group for each of the pairs of census data. Looking across these figures the changes in the profiles are easily identifiable; the assimilation profile becomes less linear and more concave over time. It is also clear from the diagrams that the period of time in Canada over which statistically significant assimilation occurs (the solid lines) has decreased in more recent years. These changes in the assimilation pattern coincide with shifts in the probability of selfemployment of immigrant cohorts upon entry to Canada. As noted above, the gap between self-employment rates of immigrant cohorts upon entry compared to that of similar natives fell substantially in the 1971-81 and 1986-96 periods and changed little between 1981 and 1991. Thus, it appears that more recent immigrant cohorts enter Canada with rates of self-employment closer to those of similar natives and assimilate rapidly into self-employment, while previous cohorts entered Canada with rates of selfemployment significantly lower than natives and assimilated more slowly. Despite these adjustments in path, however, it appears from the diagrams that the longer-run selfemployment differential between immigrants and natives did not change. In all cases the long-run differential is about 4 percentage points. Interestingly, the most notable changes in the assimilation patterns of immigrants coincide with the significant policy developments that were implemented over this period. Arguably, the most significant changes in the assimilation pattern in the period observed occurred within the two periods 1971-81 and 1986-96. During both of these

time periods there were across cohort shifts in the propensity towards self-employment accompanied by changes in the assimilation profile. As discussed in section 2, the implementation of the rights to family reunification and the introduction of the point system in 1967 led to substantial changes in the composition of immigrants to Canada. Consistent with the timing of the changes in self-employment outcomes found here, the impacts of these policies in terms of the composition of immigrants were most evident among cohorts arriving after 1970. In addition, it was previously noted that the peak in terms of the inflow of business class immigrants occurred around 1993 (after the 1981-91 period). The increase in the self-employment propensity of immigrants upon arrival to Canada relative to the various base groups observed between 1986 and 1996 is consistent with the timing of the influx of business class immigrants; who are required to operate businesses during their first few years in Canada 17. All of this leaves open the possibility that these policy developments are responsible for the changes in self-employment outcomes observed among immigrants to Canada. Canada/US Comparison: In an attempt to identify whether in fact immigration policy is responsible for the observed patterns of self-employment among immigrants as opposed to broader changes in the selection mechanism common to all immigrants, the analysis is carried out using three pairs of census data files from the United States, for comparison. Table 5 presents a summary of selected trends in predicted values from the analysis. Comparable to the layout of Table 2 for Canada, the first two rows of Table 5 provide the predicted 17 Evidence consistent with this hypothesis is found in Heibert (2002). This research shows that the rate of self-employment is much higher for business-class immigrants (though varies by sub-class) than for non-business class immigrants.

probability of self-employment for each year for a native worker and a similar immigrant, respectively, while row three gives the self-employment rate gap for each year. Consistent with previous studies examining self-employment outcomes among US men (see, for example, Schuetze 2000), the results show little secular change in selfemployment rates beyond 1980. Unlike the results for Canada, which showed significant growth in predicted self-employment rates among native workers, the predicted selfemployment rates remained stable in the US following the 1970-1980 period. Also unlike the results for Canada, Table 5 suggests that the self-employment rate gap between new arrivals and natives widened somewhat over the period examined in the United States. This gap, while predicted to have fallen over the 1970-1980 period in Table 5, is predicted to have grown over the 1980-1990 and 1990-2000 time periods. The fact that this gap fell over roughly the same time period in Canada is consistent with the notion that Canadian immigration policy towards self-employment, which requires business class immigrants to maintain a business in first few years after arrival, has resulted in higher rates of self-employment among Canadian immigrants upon arrival. Table 6 provides the results of the full decompositions of the changes in selfemployment propensities for the United States. The first column in each of the panels gives the cross-section assimilation pattern constructed from the year of arrival cohort indicators for year t+10, while the next two columns decompose these into within and across cohort differences without adjusting for secular trends. Because the results were not sensitive to the base group used 18, only the adjusted results using natives as the base group are presented for the US. These results are presented in the last two columns of each of the panels. As for Canada, the results of the decomposition show that the 18 The one exception pertains to the 1990-2000 period. This outcome is discussed below.

cross-section estimates conceal important aspects of the assimilation process. Also similar to the results for Canada to a certain extent, is the pattern of assimilation. The results in Table 6 suggest that the probability of self-employment among immigrants to the US does not increase monotonically with the number of years since migration. Most of the assimilation occurs in the first ten to twenty years in the US; with the highest rates in the first ten to fifteen years. In addition, similar to outcomes among Canadian immigrants, rates of self-employment among immigrants to the US quickly overtake those of similarly skilled natives. Comparing the relevant gap in each period (year t from each panel of Table 5) to the rate of growth net of secular trends among the most recent arrivals from Table 6 suggests that immigrant self-employment rates exceed those of similar natives after ten to fifteen years in the 1970-1980 and 1980-1990 censuses and after fifteen to twenty years in the 1990-2000 analysis. Interestingly, this overtaking occurs in both countries and across all periods despite differences in the size of the entry gaps. The fact that immigrant self-employment rates overtake those of natives despite differences in the general level of self-employment suggests that, regardless of differences in the institutional or country specific factors that influence local rates of selfemployment, immigrants adapt to local labour market conditions (relatively rapidly according to the estimates). This result casts doubt on explanations of the higher rates of self-employment which suggest that fixed characteristics, such as home country propensities towards self-employment, are responsible. Finally, despite changes in the entry gap, the pattern of assimilation appears to be much more stable across the various time-periods examined in the US than in Canada. For example, the period of assimilation is about the same across the time-periods.

Immigrants entered the United States with rates of self-employment that were below those of similar natives but these rates rose relative to natives for approximately 10 to 15 years after arrival (up to 20 years after arrival in the 1980-90 panel). The similarity in the pattern of assimilation across the time periods is illustrated in figures 4 through 6, which plot out the predicted self-employment rates of immigrants relative to similar natives through time in the US for each of the time periods, separately. With a couple of exceptions, these profiles appear to be alike. First, over the 1990-2000 period there is evidence of a decline in the propensity towards self-employment among earlier arrival cohorts of immigrants relative to natives. Second, looking across the assimilation profiles it appears that the predicted longer-run self-employment rate differential between immigrants and natives has declined in more recent years. For example, in the 1970-80 analysis the long-run predicted immigrant male self-employment rate differential approaches 4 percentage points. In the more recent profiles, while it is difficult to make out the long-run trend, it is clear that the self-employment rate differentials are lower. These differences may result from the fact that the predicted profiles in each of the time periods are evaluated at different values of the characteristics. Despite these differences, the relative stability of the assimilation profiles of male immigrants to the US compared to Canada suggests that country-specific factors likely were responsible for the changes in Canada. Indeed, the timing of these changes points to immigration policy amendments as the most probable cause.