Non-whites get less in Canada

David Ralph Mathews of the University of British Columbia and his Ph.D. student Jasson Lian have found that at every education level, non-white Canadians earned less than their similarly educated white counterparts.

The income gap between whites and non-whites suggests that Canada, despite its vaunted multi-cultural policies and worldwide reputation for tolerance, is “a racist society” when it comes to paying people for the work they do, wrote Mathews and Lian. “There's equality of opportunity in Canada but inequality of results,” Mathews said.

Mathews said he tried to find an explanation other than racial prejudice for the lower incomes earned by non-whites, but he couldn't. “We have sort of a liberal presumption that education protects one from discrimination,” he said. “That doesn't seem to be the case. This study suggests we have a pattern of discrimination that is incredibly thorough. It flies in the face of how we regard ourselves as Canadians.”

The two sociologists analysed 425,107 Canadians and concluded that the pattern of wage discrimination against non-whites is “startling”. They attributed this income gap to “discrimination against visible minorities”.

“We took 1991 census figures as this was the first time that about 500,000 Canadians received detailed census questionnaires that expected them to answer about their age, gender, how long in labour force, period of immigration to Canada, education, ethnicity and their annual earnings,” Mathews explained.

“We found that people of European origin — British, French, Italians, Portuguese — doing identical work, with same level of education, receive same wages for similar kind of work,” he said.
Contrary to the general perception in Canada, the two found no wage difference between the British and French Canadians. “But there is a difference between white Canadians and visible minorities in terms of wages,” they found.

In fact, Mathews said, they also found “statistically significant income difference when visible minorities are compared with English and French.” He was not sure whether “it is direct discrimination” or there are other factors for visible minorities earnings less.

The study claimed that among non-whites, discrimination pervaded every ethnic group. Those of Asian, African and Latin American descent earned less than Anglo-Canadians in nine out of 10 educational categories, concluded Mathews and Lian. South Asians earned 6.8 per cent less than the white Canadians.