Sociology 339F Immigration and Employment http:www'utoronto'caethnicstudiesSOC339'html

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Sociology 339FImmigration and Employmenthttp//
www.utoronto.ca/ethnicstudies/SOC339.html

• Instructor Prof. Jeffrey G. Reitz
• Department of Sociology
• Ethnic, Immigration and Pluralism Studies
• Munk Centre for International Studies
• University of Toronto
• Fall, 2007

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Sociology 339FImmigration and EmploymentSession
10 November 13Global cities and other
contexts of immigration

• Readings
• Saskia Sassen, The Global City New York,
  London, Tokyo. Princeton, NJ Princeton
  University Press, 1991, chap. 9, pp. 245-319.
• Jeffrey G. Reitz, Terms of Entry Social
  Institutions and Immigrant Earnings in American,
  Canadian and Australian Cities, pp. 50-81 in
  Globalization and the New City, ed. by M. Cross
  R. Moore, Macmillan, 2001.
• Take home exam distributed at end of class today,
  due Nov. 20

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Agenda

• Host Societies as Contexts for Immigration and
  Integration
• Saskia Sassens Global Cities hypothesis
• Evidence and application to Canada in Comparative
  Context
• Implications and issues

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Determinants of Immigrant Employment Success

• Individual Characteristics of Immigrants
• Selection, settlement, time to adjust
  (outmigration, illegal migration)
• Human capital
• Origins
• Social and cultural capital
• Treatment of Immigrants within Institutions
• Discrimination
• Assessment of Qualifications
• Structure of Institutions
• Labour markets, e.g. union strength
• Other institutions, e.g. educational
  institutions, global cities?

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Host Society Theories

• Immigration policy
• George Borjas, Canadas points system explains
  greater success of immigrants

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Friends or Strangers? (1990) Heavens Door (1999)
George Borjas, Harvard labour economist of
immigration
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Host Society Theories

• Immigration policy
• George Borjas, Canadas points system explains
  greater success of immigrants

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Host Society Theories

• Immigration policy
• George Borjas, Canadas points system explains
  greater success of immigrants
• Plays role in recent immigration debate should
  US adopt points system?

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Host Society Theories

• Immigration policy
• George Borjas, Canadas points system explains
  greater success of immigrants,
• Plays role in recent immigration debate should
  US adopt points system?
• Wayne Cornelius et al. Controlling Immigration A
  Global Perspective (1994, 2004), points to limits
  of immigration policy to control immigration

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Host Society Theories

• Immigration policy
• George Borjas, Canadas points system explains
  greater success of immigrants,
• Plays role in recent immigration debate should
  US adopt points system?
• Wayne Cornelius et al. Controlling Immigration A
  Global Perspective (1994, 2004), points to limits
  of immigration policy to control immigration
• Integration models
• Stephen Castles and Mark Miller, Age of
  Migration, points to models of immigrant
  citizenship imperial (ideology), folk-ethnic
  (exclusion), republican (assimilationist),
  multicultural

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Host Society Theories

• Immigration policy
• George Borjas, Canadas points system explains
  greater success of immigrants,
• Plays role in recent immigration debate should
  US adopt points system?
• Wayne Cornelius et al. Controlling Immigration A
  Global Perspective (1994, 2004), points to limits
  of immigration policy to control immigration
• Integration models
• Stephen Castles and Mark Miller, Age of
  Migration, points to models of immigrant
  citizenship imperial (ideology), folk-ethnic
  (exclusion), republican (assimilationist),
  multicultural
• Policy impact? (Reitz and Breton, 1994)

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Host Society Theories

• Pre-existing ethnic or race relations (as in
  segmented assimilation, settler society
  experience)
• Labour markets and related institutions (unions,
  education)
• Government policy and programs, including
  immigration policy, policies for integration
  (models)
• Changing international boundaries, globalization

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Global Cities

• Saskia Sassen, The mobility of labor and capital
  a study in international investment and labor
  flow (1988)

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Global Cities

• Saskia Sassen, The mobility of labor and capital
  a study in international investment and labor
  flow (1988)

Saskia Sassen, (Urban planning, Columbia)
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Global Cities

• Saskia Sassen, The mobility of labor and capital
  a study in international investment and labor
  flow (1988)

• International investment
• Migration flows
• Serving elites in global cities
• Immigrant inequality

Saskia Sassen, (Urban planning, Columbia)
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Global Cities

• Saskia Sassen, The mobility of labor and capital
  a study in international investment and labor
  flow (1988)

• International investment
• Migration flows
• Serving elites in global cities
• Immigrant inequality

The Global City (1991)
Saskia Sassen, (Urban planning, Columbia)
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Global Cities application to Canada?

• Is Toronto a Global City?
• Not on list, smaller player
• More immigration, but less inequality

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Explaining greater immigrant success in Canada

• Immigration policy how important?
• In all groups, and except for Mexicans, US
  immigrants more skilled (Duleep and Regets, 1992)
• Points to significance of border, lack of
  significance of policy
• Integration model multiculturalism, how
  important?
• Indicators of discrimination similar (Reitz and
  Breton 1994)
• Resilience of theory
• E.g. new book Michael Adams, Unlikely Utopia
  the surprising success of Canadian pluralism
  (Viking Canada 2007)

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Explaining greater immigrant success in
CanadaInstitutional context

• Education of native-born

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Percent completing university degree (young
adults)
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Post-secondary enrollment rates
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(No Transcript)
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Inter-urban differences

• US Greater immigrant inequality in high
  immigration cities
• Supports Sassens Global cities
• Greater skills polarization in high immigration
  cities
• High native-born educational levels (strong
  labour markets)
• Low immigration educational levels (network
  effect?)
• Skill polarization leads to greater immigrant
  inequality
• High native-born education a factor both in
  inter-urban differences in immigrant inequality
  in US, and in Canada-US difference as well

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Labour market effects

• Greater overall inequality in US
• Lower levels of unionization
• Low wages at bottom end reduces immigrant
  earnings
• Again explains both inter-urban differences in
  US, and Canada-US difference
• Larger low-end services not prevalent in US, not
  a factor in inter-urban or crossnational
  differences
• Does not support Sassen

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Additional contextual effects

• Welfare state effects
• Compounding of institutions
• US Individualism pervades institutions
• Interdependence of institutions
• Institutional change?
• Subject of next lecture

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Summary and Implications

• Immigration policy limits
• Models, e.g. multiculturalism limits
• Global cities inequalities greater in NY, USA
• Labour market structure some effects
• Education of native-born significant independent
  variable
• Impact of institutional change?

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Sociology 339FImmigration and EmploymentNext
week Session 11 November 20Institutional
changeand declining immigrant employment success

• Readings
• Jeffrey G. Reitz, Immigrant success in the
  knowledge economy institutional change and the
  immigrant experience in Canada, 1970-1995,
  Journal of Social Issues, 57,3 (2001) 579-613.
• Jeffrey G. Reitz, Tapping immigrant skills New
  Directions for Canadian Immigration Policy in the
  Knowledge Economy, IRPP Choices 11, 1 (February
  2005) 2-18.

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Take home exam

• Two short essays, 4-5 printed pages for each,
  1000-1250 words
• Choose one from each of two lists
• Covers all of course up to last week
• Due next week Nov. 20 at beginning of class
• Grades returned in two weeks, Nov. 27