Remittance Behaviours among Recent Immigrants in Canada

Rene Houle, Statistics Canada
Grant Schellenberg, Statistics Canada

Using data from the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada (LSIC), this study examines the incidence of remitting and the amounts remitted by recent immigrants. The study is based on a sample of almost 7,500 respondents that is representative of the immigrants from different countries who arrived in Canada during 2000-2001. Remittance activities are observed two and four years after arrival. The study confirms many of the characteristics found in the literature to be correlated with remittance activities, such as household income and family characteristics. The importance of other factors, such as organizational participation, GDP per papita of country of birth and refugee status are also documented. In contrast, other factors, such as sex and education, are associated with remitting among immigrants from some regions but not others. Furthermore, large inter-regional differences remain when socio-economic characteristics and group composition are taken into account.