标题: Canadian Broken Dreams [打印本页] 作者: legendbb 时间: 2003-3-13 17:53 标题: Canadian Broken Dreams Broken dreams: Under-30s earn less than in 1980
TESS KALINOWSKI
STAFF REPORTER
Aaron Fecht never dreamed he would be living with his parents in Orillia, "scraping by" with a part-time construction job and still looking for a foothold in the labour market at 27 years old.
But nearly three years after graduating from Queen's University in environmental chemistry, Fecht hasn't made a firm foray into his chosen field of environmental consulting.
He belongs to Canada's most highly educated generation — a group of young adults who have, nevertheless, found that education doesn't necessarily guarantee the kind of rewards his parents' generation experienced.
New census data released yesterday shows Canadians under 30 made less in 2000 than they did in 1980.
This, despite the fact that 41 per cent more Canadians were enrolled in full-time university programs in 2001 than in 1991. College enrolments were up 31 per cent in the same period. And for the first time in history, Canadian average annual earnings surpassed $30,000.
But that 7.3 per cent earnings rise hasn't been felt by everyone. Men under 40 have experienced earning losses, while those over 50 have made substantial gains. The latter group accounted for 84 per cent of people earning over $100,000.
Although men with university degrees were the only group to earn significantly more than they did two decades ago, the census shows education isn't necessarily a guarantee.
"This decline in earnings for young men is one of the major explanations for their increasing tendency to return or continue to live with their parents for extended periods and to delay having a family," says the census report. Data released last year showed 41 per cent of Canadians aged 20 to 29 lived with their parents.
Fecht, who would like to come to Toronto, moved back with his parents last summer after teaching in Asia for two years. "I haven't been living at home, really living at home, since I was 19. After you've lived away that long, they have their way of doing things and you have yours. But because I don't pay rent, I can't really say anything."
Fecht earns about $350 a week at a construction job. After he makes a small contribution to the household expenses, he says he's down to pocket money.
He leaves one day a week open for his job search, and since he established some firm goals, he's had some promising interviews.
A recent contract position he applied for pays $38,000 annually, a salary he recognizes won't go far in Toronto. He says an engineering degree would have served him better for the field he's now pursuing.
The census showed all kinds of engineering studies were increasingly popular with post-secondary students. Computer science saw a 105 per cent increase in popularity, while business administration students increased 120 per cent.
There was a slight dip in the number of Canadians learning secretarial and bookkeeping skills.
Immigrants fell behind in earnings during '90s
Newcomers to Canada fail to make up ground as quickly as they did in the past
OTTAWA (CP) — The 2001 census reveals some troubling statistics for Canada's most recent immigrants, who were better educated and yet earning less when they entered the labour market than a decade earlier.
Newcomers are also failing to make up ground as quickly as they did in the past — leaving them much further behind Canadian-born workers with similar educations after 10 years in the country.
"The earnings of recent immigrants compared to those of the Canadian-born have deteriorated sharply," Statistics Canada said today in its report on earnings and education.
Canadian immigration levels remained high throughout the last decade, despite a significant economic downturn in the early '90s, and it appears that newcomers paid a price.
In all, the census counted 805,000 immigrants aged 25 to 54 who arrived last decade. Some 40 per cent of this group had a university education — compared to 23 per cent of their Canadian-born counterparts — as the federal government continued to demand higher education credentials as part of immigration policy.
Yet immigrants lost ground by just about every income measure.
Male newcomers in 2000 could expect to earn 63.1 cents for every dollar of Canadian-born wages after one year in the country, down from 63.4 cents in 1990 and 71.6 cents in 1980. Women earned just 60.5 cents, compared to 70.5 cents in 1990.
More troubling was that immigrants who'd been in Canada for 10 years, a period when traditionally they had caught or surpassed Canadian-born earnings, were well behind and slipping.
"Recent immigrants were really hard-hit by that recession in the 1990s," Miles Corak, a director with Statistics Canada, said in an interview.
"It seems that the aftershocks of that recession are still being felt."
In 2000, male immigrants earned just 79.8 cents of the Canadian-born workers' dollar after 10 years, compared to over 90 cents in 1990 and dollar-for-dollar in 1980. Women immigrants managed 87.3 cents in 2000, down from 93.3 cents in 1990 and $1.03 in 1980.
"Even with knowledge of an official language, earnings did not rise much after three or four years in the country," Statistics Canada noted.
In 1990, said the agency, newcomers who spoke French or English could expect to reach average Canadian earnings in seven years. By 2000, such linguistically comfortable immigrants who had been in Canada for 10 years were still taking home about $10,000 less than the Canadian average.
"The earnings gain associated with immigrants skills, among them language and university education, has fallen," said Statistics Canada.
And it didn't matter whether they worked in high-skill or low-skill jobs.
"The difference was especially marked for those in management," said the agency.
"In these fields, men aged 25 to 54 who immigrated during the 1990s and held a university degree earned between 50 and 60 cents for every dollar earned by their Canadian-born counterparts."
A university-educated male immigrant who had been in Canada for 10 years earned an average $47,522 in 2000 — almost $19,000, or 28 per cent, less than their Canadian-born peer. In 1990, the difference was $8,315, or 13 per cent less.
For women, the differential was less pronounced but still widening — 20 per cent less in 2000 compared to 12 per cent less in 1990.
"The big question the census is raising is, why aren't their university credentials as valued as they were in the past?" said Corak.
"Regardless of the occupation, they're getting paid less."
Overall, annual earnings for male immigrants aged 25 to 54 who arrived during the '90s averaged $33,900 in 2000 — almost 25 per cent below that of Canadian-born workers. More significantly, that immigrant income was down 15 per cent in constant, inflation-adjusted dollars from the $40,100 earned in 1980 by newcomers who arrived in the '70s.
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