Immigrant Group Differences in Job Satisfaction

Despite the large number of immigrants in Canada’s labor force, studies of immigrants to Canada have devoted insufficient
attention to how country of birth and race are related to job satisfaction. Using data from a general population telephone
survey of English-speaking workers in Toronto (n = 659), we investigate job satisfaction differences between white Canadian-born workers and immigrants born in the Caribbean,
the Philippines, South Asia, China, Portugal, the United States, and the UK. Each of the immigrant groups is racially homogenous,
and most of the groups are composed of (non-white) visible minorities. We find that the contrasts between Canadian-born whites
and workers born in the Philippines and China remain substantial, and statistically significant under one-tailed tests, after
age, gender, job type, income, job demands, job control, job support, workplace discrimination, job-related stress, and perceived
unfairness at work are all controlled. We argue that social comparison theory offers the most compelling explanation for the
persistence of group differences in job satisfaction after controls.