Migration between Canada and the United States

Abstract

Some new estimates about movements of the population and of the labor force between Canada and the United States are presented and discussed. They indicate that migration between the two countries is larger than has been thought, and is growing. This increasing interchange is especially important among professional and skilled workers. The net loss from Canada to the United States appears much smaller than has been thought, mainly because the number of Canadian citizens returning to Canada has been underrecorded. While the net loss is relatively small in relation to the labor force, there are some indications that any assessment of the net effects upon Canada has to take account of a tendency, which may be diminishing, for the relatively more highly trained workers to remain in the United States. Conventional explanations of the movement to the United States appear unsatisfactory in view of the growth of migration to Canada. A more realistic view may be the emergence of an international labor market, especially among more highly trained people, which has developed because of the growing interdependence of the Canadian and United States economies and as a result of the increasing scarcity of high-level manpower.