Through the use of a social exclusion framework and analysis of recent data from the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (2009), a national longitudinal database, this empirical research investigates the mechanisms through which social groups are made and socio-economic outcomes are determined in Canada today. Our objective is to explore and describe the social characteristics and personal attributes that intersect to direct divergent economic realities. To this end, we initially present a brief review of the social exclusion literature, as well as descriptive data on several aspects of age and immigration. This is followed by logistic regressions for five dimensions of economic exclusion, to examine who is made socially excluded in economic terms in Canada. Subsequently, to progress the analysis from a focus on the individual effects of specific social attributes, we calculate the combined odds of two dimensions of economic exclusion (low individual earnings and insecure employment) for eight prototypes of individuals, to highlight the intersecting effects of social dynamics related to age, gender, visible minority status and immigrant status, and to ultimately explore who gets ahead and who falls behind in the Canadian labour market. We conclude with a discussion of policy and research implications. À partir d’un cadre d’exclusion sociale et de l’analyse de données récentes de l’Enquête sur la dynamique du travail et du revenu de 2009, une base de données longitudinale et nationale, cette recherche empirique étudie les mécanismes de formation des groupes sociaux et d’identification des enjeux socio-économiques d’aujourd’hui au Canada. Notre objectif est d’explorer et de décrire les caractéristiques sociales et les attributs personnels qui s’entrecoupent pour adresser des réalités pécuniaires divergentes. À cette fin, nous présentons d’abord une brève revue de la documentation sur l’ostracisme social, ainsi que des données descriptives sur plusieurs aspects de l’âge et de l’immigration. Puis, nous en venons aux régressions logistiques pour cinq dimensions de l’exclusion économique, afin d’examiner qui est socialement l’objet d’un rejet en termes financiers au Canada. Ensuite, pour faire avancer l’analyse à partir d’une focalisation sur les effets individuels d’attributs sociaux spécifiques, nous calculons les probabilités de deux composantes de cette exclusion économique (de bas revenus individuels et un travail précaire) pour huit prototypes d’individus, afin de mettre en lumière les effets croisés de dynamiques sociales reliées à l’âge, au genre, au statut de minorité visible et à celui d’immigré, et pour finalement explorer qui passe devant et qui reste en arrière dans le marché du travail. Nous concluons avec un examen des implications à étudier dans les domaines des politiques et de la recherche.

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This article contrasts the earnings of high‐ and low‐status care workers in Canada, the United States, Japan, the Republic of Korea and Taiwan (China) using the micro‐data files of the Luxembourg Income Study. By disaggregating existing definitions of care work, the author identifies occupations with lower and higher degrees of “social closure”, revealing the associated care penalties and care bonuses cross‐nationally. She also empirically measures the extent of similarities (and differences) between and within care economies in “liberal” and “productivist developmental” welfare regimes, offering support for the argument that globalization has fostered substantial convergence within the international care market.

This article disaggregates high- and low-status care work across eight liberal welfare regimes: Australia, Canada, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. Using Luxembourg Income Study data, descriptive and multivariate analyses provide support for a ‘migrant in the market’ model of employment, notwithstanding variation across countries. The data demonstrate a wage penalty in both high- and low-status care employment in several liberal welfare regimes, with the latter (service jobs in health, education and social work) more likely to be part-time and situated in the private sector. Migrant care workers are found to work disproportionately in low-status, low-wage types of care and, in some cases, to incur additional wage penalties compared to native-born care workers with equivalent human capital.

Using a growth model analysis of Canada's Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada (LSIC), we establish a significant relationship between application status — i.e., the distinction in immigration policy between primary and secondary migrants — and individual wages. This relationship is associated with an earnings disadvantage for secondary migrants, who are disproportionately female. The disadvantage persists over time, even when individual human capital and personal characteristics, household context, and pre‐existing differences in the relative employability of spouses are taken into account. We outline some possible explanations for this effect, as well as implications for immigration policy makers.