The economic performance of Chinese immigrants in North America In 1990s

Abstract: The immigrants from China have generally taken over European immigrants to play important role in the North America since 1960s. Based on the human capital theory and neoclassical economic theory, this thesis examines the characteristics of Chinese immigrants who respectively arrived at the United States and Canada since 1990 (cohort 1990-1997 and cohort 1998- 2000). The data is coming from the 2001 Canadian census and 2000 U.S. census stemmed from the IPUMS datasets in order to examine the gap in the earnings between Chinese immigrants and the Natives that should diminish with the duration in the host countries. Using the probit and OLS regressions, our findings show that Chinese immigrants experience drop off in the transferability of the education attainment in both host countries. Moreover, our results indicate the U-shape pattern in the occupational mobility, when Chinese immigrants immigrated into the United States or Canada. In addition, this thesis analyses the sample of Chinese immigrants from the 1991 Canadian census, 2000 U.S. census, and 2001 Canadian census and finds that among Chinese immigrants the brain drain occurred with their relocation from Canada to the United States. The different characteristics of Chinese immigrants who selected different host countries have been revealed.