Are Immigrants’ Pay and Benefits Satisfaction Different than Canadian-born?

Abstract

This study contributes to the emerging literature on immigrants’ life, job, and pay satisfaction by focusing on a relatively understudied aspect of the immigrant experience – satisfaction with pay and benefits. The purpose of the study is to first examine whether there are differences in satisfaction with pay and benefits between Canadian-born and immigrant workers, and if so, to then examine factors associated with immigrants’ pay and benefits satisfaction using discrepancy and equity theoretical frameworks. Immigrants are examined in four cohorts based on the year of arrival. We use Statistics Canada’s 2005 Workplace and Employee Survey (WES), which is a large Canadian dataset containing responses from both employers and employees enabling us to control for individual and workplace heterogeneity. Both descriptive and multivariate regression results found that, with the exception of the pre-1965 cohort, all immigrant cohorts report significantly lower pay and benefit satisfaction compared to Canadian-born workers. Further, we find that for Canadian-born workers, external and internal referents, non-wage benefits, and pay-for-performance are positively related to pay and benefit satisfaction, whereas pay-for-output is important for the 1986 to 1995 and 1996 to 2005 immigrant cohorts.We conclude that the lack of consistency in the factors contributing to pay and benefits satisfaction across Canadian-born and immigrant groups suggests that the theories and traditional models for pay and benefit satisfaction may not be as relevant when studying immigrants. We recommend that further studies of a qualitative nature tease out factors associated with immigrants’ pay and benefits satisfaction and contribute to the refinement of existing theories. The results can also assist human resource managers and government policy-makers to facilitate more successful integration and retention of immigrants.Cette étude se propose de contribuer à la littérature émergente sur la vie des immigrants, leur emploi et leur satisfaction par rapport à leur rémunération en se concentrant sur un aspect sous-étudié de leur expérience, soit leur satisfaction à l’égard de leur salaire et de leurs avantages sociaux. L’objectif de l’étude est d’abord d’examiner s’il existe une différence à l’égard de la satisfaction envers le salaire et les avantages sociaux entre les Canadiens d’origine et les travailleurs immigrants, et si oui, de se pencher sur les facteurs associés à la satisfaction des immigrants à l’égard de ces matières en ayant recours à des cadres d’analyses théoriques en matière d’équité et de discordance.Le groupe des immigrants est étudié en quatre cohortes selon leur année d’arrivée au Canada. Pour ce faire, nous nous servons des données de l’enquête de Statistique Canada intitulée « Enquête sur le milieu de travail et les employés » (EMTE) de 2005, laquelle constitue une vaste base de données de la part à la fois des employeurs et des employés, nous permettant de contrôler pour l’hétérogénéité tant des individus que du milieu de travai...

Vacation Leave, Work Hours, and Wages: New Evidence from Linked Employer–Employee Data

“…Also, Chowhan et al . () note that it is hard to derive conclusions about the relationships between nonwage benefits and the pay system for Canadian‐born and ethnic groups workers because of the lack of consistency in the factors contributing to pay and benefits satisfaction across these two groups of workers.…”

“…Chowhan et al . () use Statistics Canada's 2005 WES dataset and find that immigrant employees arrived to Canada between 1996 and 2005 are more likely to receive lower pay and benefits satisfaction than Canadian‐born employees. By the same token, Fang and Heywood () use the WES dataset and find that ethnic minorities have lower earnings than nonminorities in the time rate sector; however, these two groups receive similar earnings in the output pay sector.…”

Immigrants and job satisfaction: Do high performance work systems play a role?

“…propositions regarding psychological contract, pay-for-performance and improvement in an employee's situation all suggest a positive role for HPWS practices for mitigating the negative effects of underemployment on job satisfaction. Fang et al (2009) found a significant positive effect of job rotation on job satisfaction for immigrants with a university or professional degree, and a recent study by Chowhan et al (2012a) found that the HPWS practice of pay-for-output significantly and substantially affects immigrants' pay satisfaction more positively than Canadian-born employees. We adapt the framework to focus on the interaction between immigrant status and HPWS practices and job satisfaction.…”

Vacation Leave, Work Hours and Wages: New Evidence from Linked Employer-Employee Data

“…For example, Solberg and Laughlin (1995) find evidence that white men are more likely to receive fringe benefits than black men. Chowhan et al (2012) use Statistics Canada's 2005 WES dataset and find that immigrant employees arrived to Canada between 1996 and 2005 are more likely to receive lower pay and benefits satisfaction than Canadian-born employees. By the same token, Fang and Heywood (2010) use the WES dataset and find that ethnic minorities have lower earnings than non-minorities in the time rate sector; however, these two groups receive similar earnings in the output pay sector.…”

“…These results can be related to those in Yap et al (2014) which indicate that many employee and employer predictors are positively correlated with job satisfaction for both immigrants and native-born. Also, Chowhan et al (2012) note that it is hard to derive conclusions about the relationships between non-wage benefits and the pay system for Canadian-born and ethnic groups workers because of the lack of consistency in the factors contributing to pay and benefits satisfaction across these two groups of workers.…”