Children of Asian immigrants most likely to get university degrees in Canada

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(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-09-23 10:21

OTTAWA -- Children of Asian immigrant parents have the highest rate of university completion in Canada, more than double the rate of other ethnic groups, Canadian-born or otherwise, federal agency Statistics Canada reported Monday.

University completion rates were 65 percent for youth of immigrant parents from China and India. Among children of Canadian-born parents, the rate was about 28 percent, the report found.

"In general, immigrants to Canada tend to have higher levels of education, partly because of the immigration selection process," said Feng Hou, a Statistics Canada analyst.

Family values of immigrants tend to emphasize education and because of that, their children have high aspirations, said Hou.

Living in the cities, where most new immigrants settle, also influences how much importance is placed upon the need for a university education, he said.

The study found the education rates fell more into line with each other when certain factors were taken into account. For instance, it found kids of Canadian-born parents had as high a rate of university completion if they lived in an urban area and their own parents were highly educated.

The study, entitled "Group differences in educational attainment among the children of immigrants", looked at adult children between the ages of 25 and 34.

In general, it found that children of European immigrants actually had lower rates of university completion than the kids of Canadian-born parents. The study found 24 percent of second- generation German and Central and South American youth earned university degrees.

It also found nearly one-third of youth whose parents were from the Caribbean, Portugal and the Netherlands completed university education.

The data came from the 2002 Ethnic Diversity Survey and focused on a subsample of about 3,300 young adults who were either Canadian- born children of at least one immigrant parent, or who immigrated to Canada at the age of 12 or younger.