The Impact of International Trade on the Wages of Canadians

Developments in the relative wages of more and less educated workers during the early 1990s are examined using the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics. Particular attention is paid to the role of international trade in determining the wage differential between workers with post-secondary certification and those without. It is shown that in the absence of the relatively greater growth in the supply of more educated workers, the gap between the wages of more and less educated workers would have increased. After controlling for some of the most likely influences on real wages it is found that international trade has a significant positive impact on the wages of both more and less educated workers. However, the impact on the more highly educated seems to be some four times stronger, roughly the same as the impact of technological change