StatsCan: Immigrant Children Are More Likely to Get a Degree

Foreign-born children were found to be more likely to earn a degree than Canadian-born classmates.

Children who migrate to Canada are more likely to go to school than kids who were born here, according to numbers released by Statistics Canada.

In the first tracking of child immigrants based on arrival date, foreign-born children were found to be more likely to earn a degree than Canadian-born classmates and the gap has grown over time.

Almost a third (31.6 per cent) of male immigrants, who were 12 years or younger when they arrived in the 1980s, hold a university degree by age 25 to 34. Only 20.4 per cent of Canadian-born men from that age-range hold a degree.

For women in the same age group, the trend was similar. Research shows that 39.8 per cent of female immigrants, who immigrated as children in the 1980s, earned degrees as young adults. Only 29.7 per cent of their Canadian-born counterparts graduate university.

Children accounted for roughly 26 per cent of all immigrants who landed in Canada in the 1960s. They accounted for 24 per cent of 1970s arrivals and 21 per cent in the 1980s.

Europe contributed 71.4 per cent of the child immigrants in the 1960s, 40.8 per cent in the 1970s and 28.6 per cent in the 1980s. Over the same time period, Asian child immigrants rose from 9.7 per cent to 42.2 per cent.