Participation des immigrants à la formation liée à un emploi au Canada

L’essor continu de l’économie canadienne repose grandement sur l’immigration. Toutefois, le Canada a encore du chemin à faire pour assurer l’intégration des nouveaux arrivants sur le marché du travail. Notre recherche porte sur un moyen souvent considéré comme essentiel pour accomplir cette intégration : la formation liée à l’emploi. L’expression « formation liée à l’emploi » fait référence aux activités d’apprentissage en lien avec un emploi et parrainées par l’employeur. Nous avons deux objectifs. Le premier est de déterminer si les immigrants et les Canadiens de naissance ont les mêmes chances de participer à des activités de formation liée à l’emploi. Le deuxième est d’examiner l’effet du sexe et de la durée depuis l’immigration sur la probabilité qu’un immigrant participe à la formation liée à l’emploi. Notre analyse est de type quantitatif et utilise les données de l’Enquête sur l’éducation et la formation des adultes de l’année 2003, menée par Statistiques Canada. Concernant le premier objectif, il ressort de nos analyses que les travailleurs immigrants sont moins susceptibles que les Canadiens de naissance de participer à la formation liée à l’emploi. Même si d'autres études ont remarqué un écart semblable entre ces deux groupes, notre recherche a la particularité de contrôler l'impact de six variables qui, selon la littérature, affectent le niveau de participation à la formation liée à l’emploi. Cette particularité réduit la probabilité que la différence observée entre les immigrants et les Canadiens de naissance puisse être le résultat d'un facteur autre que le statut d'immigrant. Quant au deuxième objectif, notre étude montre que la durée depuis l'immigration augmente les chances qu'un immigrant participe à la formation liée à l’emploi. Néanmoins, la question concernant l'impact du sexe de l’immigrant demeure ouverte. En effet, à l’encontre de nos attentes, nous n’avons pas observé d’effet statistiquement significatif du sexe sur la relation entre le statut d’immigrant et la participation à la formation liée à l’emploi. Notre recherche permet d'attirer le regard sur un possible facteur modérateur qui mérite plus de réflexion de la part des chercheurs.

Abstract The continuous growth of the Canadian economy depends considerably on immigration. However, Canada has still work to do in order to ensure that new immigrants successfully integrate its labour market. Our research focuses on a means that is often considered critical to ensure this integration: job-related training. In this study, the expression “job-related training” refers to employer-sponsored learning activities related to a specific job. We have two goals. The first is to determine whether immigrants and Canadian-born persons have similar opportunities to participate to job-related training activities. The second is to examine the effect of gender and time since immigration on an immigrant’s likelihood to participate to job-related-training. Our quantitative empirical analysis relies on data from Statistics Canada’s 2003 Adult Education and Training Survey. Our study enables us to reach our first objective. Indeed, it reveals that immigrant workers are less likely than Canadian-born persons to participate in job-related training activities. Although other studies have reported a similar gap between these two groups, our study is special in that it controls the effect of six variables, which, according to the literature, influence participation to job-related training. This characteristic reduces the likelihood that the observed gap between immigrants and Canadian-born persons be the result of a factor other than immigration status. Our empirical study also allows us to reach our second objective, though only partially. Our study shows that time since immigration is positively related to the likelihood that an immigrant participates to job-related training. However, it leaves unanswered the question regarding the impact of the immigrant’s gender. Against our expectations, we do not observe that gender has a statistically significant effect on the relationship between immigration status and the level of job-related training. Our study brings nonetheless attention to a possible moderating factor that deserves further attention from researchers.Abstract The continuous growth of the Canadian economy depends considerably on immigration. However, Canada has still work to do in order to ensure that new immigrants successfully integrate its labour market. Our research focuses on a means that is often considered critical to ensure this integration: job-related training. In this study, the expression “job-related training” refers to employer-sponsored learning activities related to a specific job. We have two goals. The first is to determine whether immigrants and Canadian-born persons have similar opportunities to participate to job-related training activities. The second is to examine the effect of gender and time since immigration on an immigrant’s likelihood to participate to job-related-training. Our quantitative empirical analysis relies on data from Statistics Canada’s 2003 Adult Education and Training Survey. Our study enables us to reach our first objective. Indeed, it reveals that immigrant workers are less likely than Canadian-born persons to participate in job-related training activities. Although other studies have reported a similar gap between these two groups, our study is special in that it controls the effect of six variables, which, according to the literature, influence participation to job-related training. This characteristic reduces the likelihood that the observed gap between immigrants and Canadian-born persons be the result of a factor other than immigration status. Our empirical study also allows us to reach our second objective, though only partially. Our study shows that time since immigration is positively related to the likelihood that an immigrant participates to job-related training. However, it leaves unanswered the question regarding the impact of the immigrant’s gender. Against our expectations, we do not observe that gender has a statistically significant effect on the relationship between immigration status and the level of job-related training. Our study brings nonetheless attention to a possible moderating factor that deserves further attention from researchers.