Parental education is key to childhood immigrant’s higher education, according to a new study. Statistics Canada stated that the parent’s education positively impacts the possibility of immigrant children acquiring post-secondary education.
Furthermore, the study also examined if there was a major difference in relationships among the new immigrants from diverse source areas.
Moreover, there is a more profound link between the education attained by parents and the education acquired by childhood immigrants. For instance, parents with higher education will likely have a more positive impact on their children’s education. This means they will automatically pass on their positive educational background to their children. Also, children of such highly educated immigrant parents will have greater aspirations and academic expectations.
This conclusion comes from a sample of 100,000 childhood immigrants who came here when they were just 17 years old or even less than that. These children turned between 25 and 44 during the 2016 Census.
Parental education is key to childhood immigrant’s higher education – the major findings of this new study
The most vital finding of this study on childhood immigrants states that parents who attained higher studies greatly impacted the immigrants who arrived in Canada during their childhood. This typically implies that these childhood immigrants had greater chances of graduating with a bachelor’s degree. They had significant chances of getting into higher studies, particularly if both parents had acquired a higher level of education.
For example, a father with a degree led to the childhood immigrants getting a degree. The percentage of such immigrant children was around 64 percent. This contrasts with those 33 percent whose father had attended high school or less than that.
Immigrants who came to the country in their childhood had 15 points higher chances of getting a degree if they had a father who also holds a degree. This is contrary to the situation when a father had only acquired a high school education or perhaps less than that. The exact impact is found with a mother’s educational qualification.
Now, talking of both parents with a degree, the impact almost doubles immigrant children’s chances to have a degree for themselves, too. The increase in the percentage points of such childhood immigrants is around 27. This is again contrary to a situation when both parents had only completed their high school studies, which means 27 points less for such childhood immigrants.
Looking at the difference in source regions, the impact was less positive among immigrant parents from East Asia and South East Asia. This is compared to the immigrant families from Europe and English-speaking nations (developed countries).
Some more key findings
The third key finding is that the results turned out differently when they expanded the horizon of educational achievements to incorporate trades and college certifications. In this scenario, the impact of parent’s education was weaker. Also, the difference between the academic achievements with respect to the source regions was less. The study even revealed that families from East Asia and South East Asia emphasized university education. Contrarily, families from other source areas opted for trades or college programs.
Lastly, family income within the first five years of entering Canada had a negligible impact on childhood immigrant’s higher educational qualifications. This means it hardly impacted the immigrant children attaining a degree or post-secondary education.
The crucial role of these research findings
Selecting immigrants who have attained a higher level of education leads Canada to sustain stronger educational results among the forthcoming generations.
The various types of post-secondary programs and trade programs reflect the variations across higher educational trends among immigrant children. Additionally, the source areas and their vital difference can lead to different types of skills within the Canadian workforce. This indicates that the source regions will have different impacts on the labor market skills. These regions will also affect the employment the immigrant children will fight for.
The family income affects the immigrant children’s education level on a smaller scale. However, it is still significant as most immigrant families tend to suffer financially in the initial phases of their immigration. To conclude, families with low incomes don’t drastically impact their children’s educational achievements.
