Converging at the Bottom of the Income Distribution? Assimilation of Immigrant Cohorts over Time

This paper uses a poverty intensity measure to provide additional empirical evidence on the assimilation of immigrant cohorts over time in Canada. This method is used because a reliable, and conservative, indicator of the poor integration of immigrants is the disproportional, prolonged poverty in these immigrant cohorts. The Sen index of poverty intensity captures incidence, depth, and equality of poverty and permits subgroup decomposition and therefore is a good choice. The immigrant cohorts, who arrived before 1946, from 1946 to 1955, from 1956 to 1965, from 1966 to 1970, from 1971 to 1975, from 1976 to 1980, from 1981 to 1985, and from 1986 to 1997, are examined with reference to the native-born population. The empirical results show that the convergence appeared to be stronger for the earlier immigrant cohorts in Canada but it was markedly slower for the 1981--1985 and 1986-1997 immigrant cohorts during the period of 1986--1997.