Nouveaux arrivants de 1989, langue et mobilité professionnelle sur le marché du travail de Montréal: une approche longitudinale

The authors focus on new immigrants’ first three years of establishment in a new country, based on a sample drawn from a bilingual area in order to distinguish the effect of language skill from the social effect of language. Montreal is chosen as the "bilingual area." The authors examine how language affects occupational mobility (i.e. the time taken to find a job, and the duration of that job). They conclude that the effect language has on mobility varies according to the ranking of the job: language proficiency is found to shorten the duration of the first job and to extend the time spent in the third. The type of effect also changes over time: although language skill alone seems to play a part at first, this effect later tapers off and is replaced by the social effect of language. Furthermore, they found that English language proficiency and its use at work have no impact on the occupational mobility of immigrants. They speculate that this could be a recent effect of the language legislation in Quebec, which forced large companies to adopt French as the workplace language.

Cahiers de démographie du Québec

Vol. 31

no. 1

69-94

2002

fr