Bridging capital: The income growth rate of Canadian trained immigrant and non-immigrant male and female apprentices

How does the income growth rate of recent immigrant journeypersons compare to their non-immigrant counterparts, and what sociodemographic characteristics help explain this disparity? Drawing on newly available administrative data from Statistics Canada, this article estimates the income growth rate among immigrant and non-immigrant male and female journeypersons who completed apprenticeship training in Canada. The findings show that the income growth rate for immigrant men and women is significantly lower than that of non-immigrant men and women. Once individual and geographic characteristics are accounted for, there is no significant difference. After estimating Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition models, we show that the type of trade studied is the most important difference between immigrant and non-immigrant apprentices. The findings suggest that immigrants enter apprenticeship training to reskill by obtaining post-migration human and social capital but may subsequently enter less lucrative career paths than their native-born counterparts due to a lack of bridging capital that allows access to professional networks in more lucrative skilled trades.