Who Drives a Taxi in Canada?

3. Postsecondary-educated taxi drivers

3.1. Country of highest educational attainment

Table 5 shows that one out of every three postsecondary-educated immigrant taxi drivers has a Canadian degree. However, a vast majority (84.4%) of them are trade or college diploma holders. Among postsecondary-educated immigrant taxi drivers, those with Indian or Pakistani degrees account for 18.8% and 11.8% of the total.

Source: 2006 Census.

Since sample sizes are too small, we cannot provide a breakdown of taxi drivers by highest educational attainment, country of education and immigration status due to confidentiality considerations. Combining Canadian-born and immigrant taxi drivers, among bachelor’s degree holders, 1,510 out of 4,515 (33.4%) are Canadian trained, 1,060 (20.2%) have degrees from India and 670 (14.8%) have degrees from Pakistan. Among 1,525 taxi drivers with master’s degrees, 245 (16.1%) have Canadian degrees, and 385 (25.3%) have degrees from India. Among 255 PhD and MD taxi drivers, 180 (70.6%) are foreign trained and 35 (13.7%) have degrees from India. There are 75 (29.4%) Canadian trained among the PhD or MD taxi drivers.

3.2. Field of study

The distribution pattern of field of study for postsecondary-educated taxi drivers is quite different between the Canadian born and immigrants. For the Canadian born, nearly one third have a degree in architecture and related technologies^{Footnote 4}, 14.5% studied in business, management, marketing and related support services, and 13.5% studied in personal, protective and transportation services. Among immigrants, however, the top postsecondary field is business, management, marketing and related support services, accounting for 15.9%; while architecture and related technologies and engineering rank second and third, accounting for 13.7% and 13.4% respectively. The percentage of taxi drivers with engineering degrees is much higher among immigrants (13.4%) than among the Canadian born (2.2%).

Among immigrant taxi drivers, field of study also differs substantially by landing cohort. Among established immigrants, the percentage of those with degrees in architecture and related technologies is the highest (16.7%) – still lower than that of the Canadian born (28.1%), but much higher than that of recent (8.0%) and very recent immigrants (5.4%). However, the percentage of taxi drivers with degrees in engineering is much higher among recent (17.6%) and very recent immigrants (20.2%) than among established immigrants (11.0%). This higher percentage of engineering degree holders among later arrivals is likely related to the much higher percentage of holders of engineering degrees among later arrivals rather than to increasing difficulties of engineering graduates in finding work in their fields compared to graduates from other fields^{Footnote 5}.

F: Too unreliable to be released.
x: Suppressed for confidentiality.
Source: 2006 Census.

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