Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Title: The Selection of Recent High-Skilled Immigrants to Canada
Author-Name: Xavier Dufour-Simard
Author-Name: Jean-François Gauthier
Author-Name: Pierre-Carl Michaud
Creation-date: 2026
Abstract: We study economic integration, intentions, and selection using a new survey of recent high-skilled immigrants to Canada (arrivals 2015–2025), linked to native-conditional earnings percentile ranks. We document five main results. First, high-skilled immigrants experience large earnings gains from migration, with average earnings roughly doubling within one year of arrival. Second, entry status strongly predicts early outcomes: immigrants on closed work permits outperform direct permanent residents, while students and open-permit entrants start lower, with students catching up faster. Third, nonpermanent residents do not, on average, integrate faster than permanent residents relative to natives, except for former students. Fourth, intentions to stay are more closely related to earnings growth than to income levels. Fifth, reweighting current selection criteria to predict earnings improves expected outcomes and shifts selection toward high-performing non-permanent residents, particularly those on closed permits. 
Classification-JEL:  J15, J61, F22.
Keywords: immigration, temporary immigrants, selection, integration.
File-URL: https://cjp.hec.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Working-paper-6-EN.pdf
File-Size: 2060
Handle: RePEc:rsi:cjpcha:06