ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that immigrants to Canada who declared themselves in the 1991 census to be religiously “Jewish” display much higher earned incomes as well as much higher values for each and every income-enhancing characteristic than other immigrants display. In Canada the immigration debate reflects several concerns. Research on the economic performance of immigrants to Canada has focused on pertinent characteristics as age, education, marital status, language, entry category, and intended occupation. The chapter discusses the results of testing a human capital model for the Jewish Canadian-born and Jewish immigrant earnings experiences. A human capital model argues that after arrival, Jewish immigrants accumulate, via education, experience and greater language facility, human capital which gradually makes them more competitive in the Canadian labor market. Immigrant Jews share income-enhancing characteristics with the larger population of Jews, with the anomaly that they are relatively less well educated. Jews apparently overcome the “jeopardy” inherent in being immigrants by virtue of other income-correlates.
