Waterloo’s international students gain earnings advantage over their Canadian-born peers
Dr. Mikal Skuterud
Professor, Economics
> Director, Canadian Labour Economics Forum
Dr. Mikal Skuterud became interested in labour markets in high school while working in a large warehouse alongside many recent migrants to Canada. During his undergraduate degree in labour studies, Skuterud took several economic theory courses, which confirmed he was on the right career path.
For more than two decades, Skuterud’s research has focused on the economics of Canadian immigration. Today, he is considered one of the country’s leading subject matter experts.
In a recent study tracing the economic impact of University of Waterloo students across two decades, Skuterud and his collaborators found that contrary to unsubstantiated theory, international students who study in Canada don’t see their skills underutilized once they join the Canadian labour market.
“This is a sign that signals the potential of the country’s International Student Strategy to help boost economic growth,” Skuterud says. Notably, the study found Waterloo’s international student graduates of technology and engineering programs enjoy a 37 per cent earnings advantage over their peers compared with the national average.
“Waterloo’s international students exceed not only Canadian-born graduates of the University of Waterloo but also Canadian-born university graduates nationally,” he says. They are also more likely to stay in Canada and become permanent residents as well as earn more than their Canadian counterparts.”
The study forms the bedrock of a list of recommendations for policymakers to revise Canada’s decades-old International Education Strategy to help refine admittance requirements. One recommendation suggests that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada should provide a transparent pathway for international students who seek economic-class immigration to Canada by selecting candidates with the highest expected future Canadian earnings.
Skuterud and his co-authors also emphasize that the success of Canada’s Compressive Ranking System tool in predicting migrants’ future Canadian earnings can be enhanced significantly by adding applicants’ fields of study, school identities and post-graduation Canadian earnings to the set of criteria used.
The study analyzed immigration data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and income tax returns from the Canada Revenue Agency and was done with Statistics Canada in their secure Social Data Linkage Environment.
