Or should I have called this post "The language subsidy"? Anyway, here is the latest from David Albouy, courtesy of the NBER:
The wage differential between Francophone and Anglophone men from 1970 to 2000 fell by 25 percentage points within Quebec, but only by 10 points Canada-wide, largely because the wages of Quebec Anglophones fell by 15 points relative to other Canadian Anglophones. Accordingly, the Canadian measure of the Francophone wage gap better reflects the changing welfare of Francophones than the Quebec measure. Over half of the reduction in the Canadian Francophone wage gap is explained by rising Francophone education levels. In Quebec, the declining number and relative wages of Anglophone workers is best explained by a falling demand for English-speaking labour.
Here is the paper.
This conclusion doesn’t make sense.
The overwhelming majority of francophones in Canada live in Quebec. Apart from parts of New Brunswick and a suburb of Winnipeg, there are only vestigial rapidly-assimilating remnants of francophone communities outside Quebec, despite decades of efforts by the Canadian government to promote bilingualism.
What matters most to people (francophones or anyone else) is that they’re doing relatively well where they live. For instance, it matters more to African Americans living in Atlanta that their status has been catching up relative to whites in Atlanta; the fact that people in Manhattan or any other faraway place have gotten richer in the meantime is less important.
There are various reasons by the way why the rest of Canada (other than Quebec) has gotten relatively richer during that time period. After 1970, Toronto became Canada’s business capital (formerly it was Montreal). Alberta got rich on oil. Vancouver and British Columbia benefited from the Pacific connection and links to Hong Kong and beyond. And so forth. As in the United States, there is an ongoing shift of population and wealth in a westward direction. Similar to New England and New York state which it borders on, Quebec has lost some power and influence relative to other parts of the country it finds itself in.
Tom, I don’t think anglophones got poorer or received lower wages; the cited material refers to wages relative to others. If other parts of the country get richer faster, it doesn’t make you poorer in absolute terms. Nearly all of America got poorer relative to the wages earned by people working on Wall Street; it doesn’t mean they literally got poorer.
Once the Expos left for DC, there was little need to preserve the quaint French language. That’s one thing you’d figure out only if you devote 2 hours a day to sports.
Steve,
Actually, another long-serving recent prime minister, Jean Chretien, was far from accent-free and not really fluent in any language. But you’re right, unilingual anglophones can become prime minister only if they make strenuous efforts to learn passable French (Joe Clark and Stephen Harper).
In many ways, Canada is like America would be if America a) had no Senate or President, just a House of Representatives whose Speaker automatically becomes national leader b) annexed Mexico in 1848 instead of just grabbing a bunch of territory, and c) Americans couldn’t get a high-level government job (including Speaker of the House, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Director of the FBI, etc) unless they spoke Spanish serviceably enough for press conferences.
Canada is mostly blue-statish politically. When Canadians were asked their preference for the upcoming US presidential election, they would vote, in the words of the pollster, like inner-city Chicago. Confusingly, however, in Canada’s political color spectrum, the Reds are the Liberals and the Blues are the Conservatives.
John S.,
Quebecers are the Australians of the French language, so to speak. They can speak more or less “standard” international French, but sitcoms on Quebec television cut loose with slang expressions that are completely unfamiliar in Europe. An excellent reference for speakers of “standard” French is the Dictionnaire Québécois Français by Lionel Meney (a very thick book).
Oh, and I wouldn’t say that all Quebecers can speak standard international French—their accents are considered so strong that I’ve met native French speakers from France that have a hard time understanding them.
You can buy and gain very cheap mesos.
Is it realistic?
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