Immigrant children have better education and pay than Canadian children on average, according to a research

Statistics a new study in Canada based on immigrant tax data sheds light on how young newcomers do on the job market

 Immigrant children, according to a recent Statistics Canada study, have a greater rate of postsecondary education and earn more money in their mid-20s than the rest of the Canadian population.

The analysis is focused on 2019 income tax data from the Longitudinal Immigration Database (IMDB), which shows how immigrant children assimilate into Canadian society over time.

The findings demonstrate that immigrants who arrived to Canada as children attended postsecondary education more frequently than the general Canadian population, with those admitted at young adulthood having the highest participation rates. From the age of 25, children admitted as economic immigrants fared better than the Canadian average. Then, by the age of 30, sponsored and refugee children had median salaries that were comparable to the general population. These findings matched those of a survey conducted by Stats Can for the 2018 tax year.

In preparation for future studies on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on child migrants, their adjustment period, and long-term socioeconomic results in adulthood, data from 2019 will be used to create baseline estimations.

Participation of immigrant children in post-secondary education

Children who arrived in Canada before the age of 15 had unusually high rates of college enrollment. The participation percentage for 20-year-old immigrants admitted as kids was around 70%, compared to roughly 59 percent for the rest of the Canadian population. At age 25, the participation rate for immigrants admitted as children was around 33%, compared to roughly 27% for the rest of the Canadian population.

Immigrant children’s engagement in higher education reduced as they grew older. In 2019, approximately 77 percent of 20-year-old immigrants who entered the country before the age of five enrolled in postsecondary education. For children entered between the ages of five and nine, the participation percentage dropped to almost 72 percent, and for those admitted between the ages of ten and fourteen, it was nearly 64 percent. Academic readiness and knowledge of official languages are two elements that influence postsecondary participation.

Participation in postsecondary education among children of immigrants appears to be linked to their parents’ socioeconomic status. Because of Canada’s economic immigration screening procedure, the majority of these parents already had some university degree at the time of their entry. As a result, children of economic immigrants participate in postsecondary education at a substantially higher rate than kids allowed under other immigration classifications, particularly during early adulthood.

At the age of 20, children of economic immigrants had a postsecondary participation rate of more than 75 percent, compared to roughly 61 percent for children of sponsored families and about 59 percent for the entire Canadian population. With a rate of roughly 54 percent, refugee children had the least involvement in higher education.

Immigrants admitted as children will be able to enrol in postsecondary education in 2019

Children from affluent families report better wages

Immigrants who arrived as children in Canada had lower median wages ($10,900) than the rest of the population ($12,900). This, according to the study, is because immigrants were most often enrolled in postsecondary courses at this age. Immigrants’ median salaries increased to $31,500 at age 25, outpacing the national average of $30,290.

Economic immigrant children, on the other hand, had around 11% higher median incomes ($33,700) at age 25 than the general Canadian population ($30,290). The median wage of 25-year-old immigrants who arrived to Canada as sponsored children was less than the national average.

At the age of 30, foreigners admitted as children of economic refugees had a median pay of $55,500, which was almost 29% higher than the national average of $42,940. Children from refugee families earned somewhat more than the Canadian average of $43,200, while children from sponsored families earned around $41,000.

2019 median wages for children admitted as immigrants, broken down by generation and immigration status