Search Results

With the 1967 reform, Canada’s immigration policy changed from a country-preference system to a points system. The latter provides points according to applicants’ education level but abstracts from the quality of their education. This paper considers the points system, the country-preference system, as well as a system that includes both educational quantity and quality and is termed the ‘[q2] points system.’ It focuses on the policies’ impact on immigrants’ average productive human capital – the product of educational quality and quantity - or skill level, [Sx] (for policy [x]).

It shows, among others, that (i) [Sx] is greater under the [q2] system than under the points system ([Sq] [is greater than] [Sh]); (ii) a switch from a points system to a [q2] system results in a human capital gain or net brain gain for country one (the high-education quality country) and a loss or net brain drain for country two; (iii) [Sx] is greater under the country-preference system than under the points system ([Sp] [is greater than] [Sh]); (iv) whether [Sx] is greater under the [q2] or the country-preference system is ambiguous, with [Sq] [is greater than]([less than]) [Sp] if the quality of education in country one relative to country two is higher (lower) than the degree of preference for migrants from country one relative to country two; and (v) an increase in education quality in the high- (low-) quality source country has a positive (ambiguous) impact on [Sx] under all three policies and the impact is larger under the [q2] than under the points system.

Edited published abstract. Show less