Children of Immigrants

[BC_chick]

So it turns out that Canadians with parents born outside Canada have higher levels of eduation than their counterparts whose parents were born in Canada. Of course, there is a disparity between the regions from which their parents came, but the findings are interesting nonetheless.

Here's the breakdown.

The high-school graduation rate is at least 90 per cent for the children of immigrants from most countries, but university graduation rates vary widely:

Africa (56 per cent)

Caribbean (26 per cent)

Latin America (24 per cent)

China (70 per cent)

Philippines (40 per cent)

India (65 per cent)

West Asia/Middle East (44 per cent)

Other Asia (52 per cent)

United States (34 per cent)

United Kingdom (38 per cent)

Germany (24 per cent)

Italy (32 per cent)

Portugal (26 per cent)

Netherlands (26 per cent)

Other Northern/Western Europe (35 per cent)

Eastern Europe (38 per cent)

Other Europe (45 per cent)

Other countries (37 per cent)

All children of immigrants (38 per cent)

Children of Canadian-born parents (28 per cent)

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/story.ht...0f-1addf0a01f21

In the article it makes the argument that the reason for this could be that the parents of these immigrants are more likely to be educated themselves. Makes good sense to me.

I'm quite surprised by the German and Netherlands stats being so low... and on the flip-side Africans doing as well as they are (especially compared to Carribeans).

Edited September 22, 2008 by BC_chick

[guyser]

So it turns out that Canadians with parents born outside Canada have higher levels of eduation than their counterparts whose parents were born in Canada.

Somewhere mikedavid is foaming at the mouth, furiously surfing for sites that counter this....

[Michael Hardner]

MikeDavid notwithstanding, they didn't indicate how the study was conducted.

If MD posted something supporting one of his arguments, a study with this amount of background information then I would honestly reject it.

Fair's fair.

[tango]

I find it interesting that the study does not distinguish between 'economic' immigrants and refugees. It appears to me that the difference 'washes out' and all immigrant groups do better than 'homegrown' Canadians. Interesting.

[Oleg Bach]

I find it interesting that the study does not distinguish between 'economic' immigrants and refugees. It appears to me that the difference 'washes out' and all immigrant groups do better than 'homegrown' Canadians. Interesting.

Take the Asian economic refugees who are total opportunists. As our kids pierce their lips and tatoo their faces while spending their free time smoking pot - the Asian kids are studying....I saw an interview where a young Asian student is asked why he wants to become a doctor. Time back if an anglo kid was asked this he or she would say they wanted to help people. The Asian student was honest in a cut throat opportunist sort of way - His reply " I want to be a doctor because the money is real good" PERIOD...and our kids smoke dope and dabble in cocaine - untill they become so depressed they graduate to pharma product - that the Asians in time will perscribe.

[BC_chick]

Somewhere mikedavid is foaming at the mouth, furiously surfing for sites that counter this....

He'd probably be arguing that all the immigrants stick together, never learning English... so even if they have these fancy schmancy degrees they're still driving cabs and sponsoring their pet goats to come and live on his hard-earned tax dollars...

Just a hunch though, who knows for sure.

Edited September 23, 2008 by BC_chick

[White Doors]

Are they educated in Canada at post secondary institutions or where they immigrated from?

Huge difference in my opinion.

[M.Dancer]

Are they educated in Canada at post secondary institutions or where they immigrated from?

Huge difference in my opinion.

The children of Immigrants?

[gc1765]

He'd probably be arguing that all the immigrants stick together, never learning English... so even if they have these fancy schmancy degrees they're still driving cabs and sponsoring their pet goats to come and live on his hard-earned tax dollars...

Just a hunch though, who knows for sure.

You're probably right.

I've always wondered whether mikedavid has a University degree, and if so what is it and from what institution.

[Argus]

MikeDavid notwithstanding, they didn't indicate how the study was conducted.

If MD posted something supporting one of his arguments, a study with this amount of background information then I would honestly reject it.

Fair's fair.

I recall a similar headline about immigrants some years back, being better educated than Canadians. That so didn't jibe with my experience. I actually went down to the library to physically examine the numbers. And while it was true that immigrants tended to be more likely than Canadians to have a degree, they were also more likely than Canadians to have less than a high school education, and much more likely than Canadians to not even have a grade 8 education.

I would imagine that immigrants would push their kids as hard as possible to do well in the educational system given the effort the parents made in relocating to a new land. Probably less broken homes and fatherless boys among that group too. However, we do know that in Toronto, for example, they have a huge problem with Blacks not graduating from high school. Can't think of the numbers, but they're apparently quite bad. So perhaps this "effect" of increased determination to graduate isn't all that universal among immigrants and their offspring.

[Michael Hardner]

Good point. This report doesn't talk about education overall, but the top achievers - education wise.

[gc1765]

And while it was true that immigrants tended to be more likely than Canadians to have a degree, they were also more likely than Canadians to have less than a high school education, and much more likely than Canadians to not even have a grade 8 education.

The article also mentioned this:

"The high-school graduation rate is at least 90 per cent for the children of immigrants from most countries, but university graduation rates vary widely:"

I think the high-school graduation rate in Canada is somewhere around 80%, which is lower than for immigrants. I'm not sure what they mean by "most countries" though.

[JB Globe]

I've seen studies like this before, it matches up with my own reading on immigration, and with my own personal experiences.

It makes sense, considering the high education standards required to get into Canada via the point-system - if you don't have some sort of post-secondary degree or diploma, you're just not getting in that way, hence why many immigrants are highly educated. Of course the problem begins when they get here and that education isn't recognized.

Of course, all new Canadians are on their kids from an early age to work hard at school, and post-secondary isn't just an option - it's a must. Every single friend of mine from high school whose parents were immigrants came from families where ALL of the children went to university.

Like I've said before it usually takes a generation for a community to establish itself in Canada and once the kids have grown up things really get rolling, if you look at immigrant communities contributions over 2 generations, you see quite clearly that this notion that immigration drains more from the economy than it adds ridiculous.

Immigration, when done right, is really like a blue-chip investment in Canada's future.

[kengs333]

I'm quite surprised by the German and Netherlands stats being so low... and on the flip-side Africans doing as well as they are (especially compared to Carribeans).

I don't buy it. Virtually everyone that I can think of that is a child of German immigrants is a university grad. And we're talking children of farmers, labourers, steel workers, too.

If anything, Canada needs a lot more immigrants from central Europe. They tend to be better educated and near fluent in English, unlike the immigrants that are now being allowed into this country. They are also more likely to adapt to Canadian culture and adopt it as there own.

Edited September 24, 2008 by kengs333

[blueblood]

I don't buy it. Virtually everyone that I can think of that is a child of German immigrants is a university grad. And we're talking children of farmers, labourers, steel workers, too.

If anything, Canada needs a lot more immigrants from central Europe. They tend to be better educated and near fluent in English, unlike the immigrants that are now being allowed into this country. They are also more likely to adapt to Canadian culture and adopt it as there own.

No, Canada needs to have not lazy people. A person can have a degree and be a lazy dumbass.

I don't have a university degree, and it peeves a lot of people with university degrees when I go on vacation (can you say the clampetts invade mexico?)

[Mr.Canada]

Makes sense to me as the government is falling over itself to throw money at immigrants to give them free education. When students talk about high tuition fees immigrants are laughing at us as they get it free or get many grants that run of the mill Canadians don't get.

[JB Globe]

Makes sense to me as the government is falling over itself to throw money at immigrants to give them free education.

Lying only makes you look pathetic, it's a terrible tool to use in a debate.

[Rue]

So it turns out that Canadians with parents born outside Canada have higher levels of eduation than their counterparts whose parents were born in Canada. Of course, there is a disparity between the regions from which their parents came, but the findings are interesting nonetheless.

Here's the breakdown.

In the article it makes the argument that the reason for this could be that the parents of these immigrants are more likely to be educated themselves. Makes good sense to me.

I'm quite surprised by the German and Netherlands stats being so low... and on the flip-side Africans doing as well as they are (especially compared to Carribeans).

As you might be aware immigration is more likely to consist of those with more education seeking better opportunities or if not formally educated the kind of personality where the people would be risk takers or more willing to take chances. Those kinds of personality traits have been quantified in immigrants although like any such studies they only provide general observations and of course each individual would have their own characteristics and traits.

What we also know is immigration creates a brain drain. The so called cream of the crop leave the country of origin-the intelligentsia leaves meaning the country is left with no future. This phenomena sees the intelligentsia leave for other countries often on government loans and bursaries never to return to the country that invested in them.

The other problem of course is measuring education equivalency between different countries and deciphering who actually has an education and who fabricates their educational designations.

I think one of the phenomena that current immigration policy makers struggle with is how to transfer professional training from other countries to their equivalency in Canada. For example, medical training. Sometimes we hear stories of doctors driving taxis but of course the problem is not that simple. The Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons have an obligation to protect the public and so sometimes they struggle to determine whose medical training is or is not up to the standards in Canada.

It is interesting because I knew a Russian with a Ph.d in kinesiolgy from an institute that used to churn out the Russian Olympic athletes and he was well known for the studies he had done with so many gold medal winners and the development of the coaching techniques used for them and yet when he came to Canada his designation was pretty much ignored. He fought hard and retrained in Canada and eventually became a physiotherapist. Sometimes what we accept and do not accept as equivalent professional training can seem unfair but I think its a complex task to decipher.

Does it suprise me many immigrants would be from the intelligentsia of their societies, no. However interestingly our immigration policies which are designed to assign points to certain values we seek or to fast track certain professionals we need when their training is deemed appropriate or acceptable, does not seem to be working.

For those immigrants who say they were given false repersentations of what Canada would be like when they got here and can not understand why they are not living the same lifestyle they did in their country of origin I have mixed feelings about. I think some of them are unrealistic and think they are entitled to the same class structure they left where they were privileged and now they find themselves in the working class and have no luxuries and privileges like they use to and sorry I come from a long line of refugees and immigrants that came with nothing and did not resent people for that fact and did not feel entitled to automatic lifestyle privileges, i.e., a house, a car, a job. They did not just expect these things to exist when they got here. I know that comment applies to most if not all immigrants who have come here whether they be Jewish, Irish, Ukrainian, Caribbean, etc.

However I am not sure what has happened in the last ten years. I think there is a new phenomena where some people feel these things are automatic entitlements on arrival. I am not sure where that message is coming from-their own unrealistic expectations or something the government said.

I do know working with new Canadians the ones I have encountered who blame the government for misleading them usually evidence a sense of entitlement and completely unrealistic expectations and quite frankly I find selfish, self-centered, nasty people who just as soon would exploit their mother if they thought it would help them.

But then I also know so many new Canadians and the ones you never hear about. They come, they expect nothing from anyone and they work. They take jobs no one else wants. They work and they send their kids to school and they live in an extended family or group under one home and all contribute to the mortage and so if one loses their job the others can keep paying the mortgage until the other finds a job again.

They work any job they can get. Sometimes they are paid under the table and that triggers off some to claim they all do. However that underground economy in itself still pays taxes because when they spend that undeclared money it is taxed by the gst, pst, or at the gas pumps or it circulates into the economy in purchases of things.

Its interesting because everytime the economy starts to suck the usual don't take in immigrants song begins and immigrants are accused of stealing jobs others need.

What the stats actually show is immigrants create jobs for others and do not take jobs Canadians want or will take even when they become unemployed or go onto welfare.

I do not doubt the refugee system has provided an opportunity for unskilled immigrants to come to Canada who can not speak English or French and who used the system to jump the line. The problem is even when such people are denied refugee status they are not deported and so they go underground and have become a large population forced to create false identities and become vulnerable to organized criminal syndicates using their labour.

There are also nasty immigration consultants bring in labour and lying to them and exploiting them.

All that said I think the vast majority of immigrants are needed as our population is not reproducing fast enough to be able to keep paying into the infrastructure needed to pay for cpp, schools, roads, hospitals, and other common social needs and the needs of labour and commerce as our existing labourers age and new ones are needed with new computer skills or other technological skills the aging ones do not have.

The balancing act of building your society with positive people who want to contribute as opposed to filling it with self-centered opportunistic people who simply want to take and not build is of course the continuing issue and those against immigration will focus on the negative and those who are not against immigration will focus on the positive.

Me I think most immigrants are hard working sob's and the ones that are not to me do not justify smeering all immigrants just like people who are born in Canada who are sob's does not mean the rest of us are sob's.

Also as far as I am concerned the only people who are not immigrants are the native peoples and I know they think we all look the same anyways and they probably are right on that one. We all seem to have come here after them, had a tendency to think we are better then the ones who follow us, and yet we all seem to pollute and agree that Gary Bettman is an idiot.

[Sir Bandelot]

Kingston Ontario is a small city with a population of about 115,000. The population is predominantly white, very few immigrants of "colour". While I have a great job here as an engineer, most of the city is living in squalor. Almost every single kid that is friends of my children comes from a single-family home. I am the only Dad amongst about 20 kids we know. A few years ago my son made friends with an asian boy whose family moved in nearby. They had two parents. The kid was not allowed to play much, just once in a while. My son told me his friend has to read his school books and study every night, regardless of whether there was homework to do or not. He has a computer, but is not allowed to play video games, or very little. The family is very conservative. the kid seems nice and polite and not unhappy, so I don't criticise it. But the contrast between that, and the typical families in Kingston is startling. The outcome has to be, that this kid will have opportunities to be a doctor or engineer or whatever he wants, not because he was born smart but becase he has put the work in, and had a family that kept him focussed on what they believed is important. The other families have big problems here, alcohol abuse is rampant and the kids are smoking at a young age. Makes it difficult for me as a parent to keep my kids on the straight and narrow, but my kids are grateful that they have two parents when they see whats going on in other homes. So that is another impression of "white" culture vs non.

Another interesting point about this town, many of the skilled trade workers are immigrants, Italian, Portuguese construction workers. Tha Asians run stores and work tirelessly it seems, long hours even on holidays. They are willing to do the work that others are not. Sadly, a large percentage of white english Canadians living here are lazy, addicted to drugs, overweight and divorced.

Edited October 28, 2008 by Sir Bandelot

[Argus]

Kingston Ontario is a small city with a population of about 115,000. The population is predominantly white, very few immigrants of "colour". While I have a great job here as an engineer, most of the city is living in squalor. Almost every single kid that is friends of my children comes from a single-family home. I am the only Dad amongst about 20 kids we know. A few years ago my son made friends with an asian boy whose family moved in nearby. They had two parents. The kid was not allowed to play much, just once in a while. My son told me his friend has to read his school books and study every night, regardless of whether there was homework to do or not. He has a computer, but is not allowed to play video games, or very little. The family is very conservative. the kid seems nice and polite and not unhappy, so I don't criticise it. But the contrast between that, and the typical families in Kingston is startling. The outcome has to be, that this kid will have opportunities to be a doctor or engineer or whatever he wants, not because he was born smart but becase he has put the work in, and had a family that kept him focussed on what they believed is important. The other families have big problems here, alcohol abuse is rampant and the kids are smoking at a young age. Makes it difficult for me as a parent to keep my kids on the straight and narrow, but my kids are grateful that they have two parents when they see whats going on in other homes. So that is another impression of "white" culture vs non.

Another interesting point about this town, many of the skilled trade workers are immigrants, Italian, Portuguese construction workers. Tha Asians run stores and work tirelessly it seems, long hours even on holidays. They are willing to do the work that others are not. Sadly, a large percentage of white english Canadians living here are lazy, addicted to drugs, overweight and divorced.

Maybe you just live in a shitty neighborhood. I've never heard that Kingston is any worse off, economically or socially, than any other similar sized city. And from this chart, we can surmise that the number of low-income, and single parent families in Kingston is no worse, and in some cases quite a bit better than other cities.

Stats Canada family incomes

[Sir Bandelot]

And from this chart, we can surmise that the number of low-income, and single parent families in Kingston is no worse, and in some cases quite a bit better than other cities.

Stats Canada family incomes

To quote Mark Twain, "Theres lies, damned lies and statistics"

What this doesn't show is a distribution by ethnic minorities or immigrants, which is the topic we are discussing. I put this data into a spreadsheet to do a quick calculation and get more useful information out of it other than just a big array of numbers, which is easily confusing.

If you add up the number of single parent families with one, two and three or more children, and then divide that by the total number of familes with one, two and three or more children, it gives you the percentage of single parent familes in the city. I have arranged them from highest to lowest:

Regina, Saskatchewan 0.3106

Saint John, New Brunswick 0.3085

Victoria, British Columbia 0.3029

Thunder Bay, Ontario 0.3003

Trois-Rivières, Quebec 0.2983

St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador 0.2973

Sudbury, Ontario 0.2926

Winnipeg, Manitoba 0.2918

Halifax, Nova Scotia 0.2918

Saskatoon, Saskatchewan 0.2888

Sherbrooke, Quebec 0.2881

Kingston, Ontario 0.2845

St. Catharines-Niagara Falls, Ontario 0.2840

Montreal, Quebec 0.2792

London, Ontario 0.2765

Windsor, Ontario 0.2703

Quebec, Quebec 0.2646

Ottawa-Gatineau, Ontario - Quebec 0.2637

Edmonton, Alberta 0.2631

Hamilton, Ontario 0.2563

Oshawa, Ontario 0.2548

Abbotsford, British Columbia 0.2481

Toronto, Ontario 0.2416

Calgary, Alberta 0.2328

Saguenay, Quebec 0.2381

Kitchener, Ontario 0.2324

Vancouver, British Columbia 0.2319

We still don't know the population of ethnic minorities in these cities. But if you scan down the list I leave it to you to draw your own conclusions. Which towns would have low immigrant populations, which have higher.

Some highlights- Abbotsford is really like a suburb of Vancouver. I don't know how many minorities live in Calgary. Oshawa, Hamilton, are really part of the mega city in southern ON.

At the top of the list we have Regina, St. John. Thunder Bay, Sudbury, Winnipeg, St. Johns. All small isolated towns. Victoria is predominantly white european. My guess is, most of these are predominantly non-imigrant towns.

It doesn't really prove anything, but is still interesting. I thnk one factor in the reason why is, when people move to another country they tend to stay together lnoger because they depend on each other, being in a strange land. They bring a lot of their family values from the old-country with them, which often means less leisure time for entertainment, that great harbinger of social and moral decay.

Edited November 1, 2008 by Sir Bandelot