Immigrants Face Growing Economic Mobility Gap
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Marina Jimenez, Globe and Mail (Toronto), October 6, 2008
Children of Chinese and South Asian immigrants to Canada do dramatically better over time than the offspring of blacks, Filipinos and Latin Americans, new census data reveal.
The findings, released quietly last week by Statistics Canada, suggest a new paradigm for understanding immigrants’ integration and success.
The old vertical mosaic—with whites from Britain and Europe at the top and visible minorities underneath—is no longer valid. Instead, second- and third-generation Chinese and Japanese surpass all other groups of newcomers, including whites, while for blacks and other groups, there is little or no economic mobility across generations.
“You can no longer make broad generalizations about how badly visible minorities are doing. Some groups are doing really well, and others are not,” said Jack Jedwab, a historian and head of the Association for Canadian Studies, who wrote a report on the findings.
“We need to rethink the vertical mosaic and look at why mobility is weak among certain ethnic groups.”
The new research, based on the 2006 census, comes as a disappointment—but not a surprise—to Patricia Hines, a teacher and communications expert who emigrated from Jamaica in 2001.
She believes that, while discrimination is a factor, the community could also do more to help itself.
“A lot of us look for schools and communities with black students and teachers so our children won’t feel isolated. But that is self-limiting,” says Ms. Hines, 40, who relocated to Toronto with her husband, an accountant.
“If you really don’t have an interest in what other people do, or focus overly on your community, then you are limiting your potential,” said Ms. Hines, who owns her own business and works at the Black Business and Professional Association, but noted that her opinions are her own.
The 2006 census data show that first-generation white immigrants with university degrees, aged 25-44, earned $68,036 a year on average—just above the Canadian-born baseline of $65,000. Those from Japan earned $58,294 and those from China $55,270, while black immigrants earned $51,317 a year.
The below-average incomes relate to immigrants’ language barriers, lack of Canadian job experience, and difficulties getting their credentials recognized.
The balance shifts, however, with the second and third generation.
The Chinese catapulted ahead, with the grandchildren of immigrants earning an average of $79,022 a year. Incomes for South Asians also increased substantially by the third generation.
In contrast, blacks languished, with third-generation immigrants earning less than newcomers. The incomes of Latin Americans also fell across the generations.
The census findings also suggest that blacks experience more discrimination and difficulties in the labour market than others.
Jeffrey Reitz, a sociologist at the University of Toronto, has researched this area extensively and found that while recently arrived immigrants from the Caribbean and Africa are fairly well educated, their employment outcomes are far worse than other newcomer groups.
“Blacks do fairly well in terms of education, but black men especially stand out with strikingly lower incomes. They report experiences of discrimination on a much higher level than other racial groups,” he said.
Canada’s black community has struggled with racial stereotyping and higher-than-average rates of poverty. The high school drop-out rate for blacks in the Toronto public school system has been estimated at about 40 per cent, almost double the rate for non-blacks, prompting the school board to create an alternative Afrocentric school.
An articulate professional, Ms. Hines observed that she never encountered discrimination until she began studying for her master’s degree at the University of Toronto. She was shocked to discover there were no other black students or lecturers.
When the class was asked to write the names of five black people, many could only come up with Lincoln Alexander, Ontario’s former lieutenant-governor, and Michael (Pinball) Clemons of the Toronto Argonauts football team.
“It made me realize that even though Canada is so diverse, the different ethnic groups don’t really mix or understand one another’s culture,” Ms. Hines said. “It is hard to talk about this. What are South Asian and Chinese immigrants doing that somehow gets them ahead?”
The census data found that 60 per cent of second-generation Chinese immigrants had university degrees, compared with 52 per cent of South Asians, 36 per cent of Filipinos, 32 per cent of blacks and 23 per cent of Latin Americans.
The higher education levels among Chinese and South Asians appears to reflect the values of their parents—middle-class, educated newcomers who may be underemployed when they arrive, but who expect their children to advance.
(Posted on October 6, 2008)
Comments
If descendants of the well educated blacks from the Caribbean can’t make it, how are the descendants of the stone-age immigrants from Ethiopia, Sudan and Somalia going to fare in the future? Have we not learned our lessons from the 1960’s era of black immigration? If Canada was a company, its poor hiring practices would have put it out of business years ago. But its a country, and we call it immigration. Go figure.
Posted by at 5:34 PM on October 6
“Those from Japan earned $58,294 and those from China $55,270, while black immigrants earned $51,317 a year.”
If blacks earned $51,317, then it’s because they were awarded their jobs via AA, just as they were awarded their grades and degrees the same way.
Without AA in academia and the private sector, black representation would only be about 12% of what it is right now. Black AA in Canada and the US is the biggest disgrace on planet earth today.
Too bad, their gimme’s aren’t like the sub-prime crisis where their AA participation is so highly visible it can easily be seen to be responsible for bringing the economy down on the entire world.
Posted by q at 6:10 PM on October 6
Is there any Canadienne who wouldn’t be able to come to this conclusion without even seeing the results? Anyone in the US?
Posted by Tim at 7:01 PM on October 6
Is there any Canadienne who wouldn’t be able to come to this conclusion without even seeing the results? Anyone in the US?
Posted by Tim at 7:02 PM on October 6
The reality is that this is simply a reflection of the IQ differential among the races. The leftist loons would have us believe that the truth is “racist”.
IMHO; the real racism is designing public polices on the fallacious assumption that the races are of equal abilities despite all empirical evidence indicating they are NOT.
This dooms the left half of the IQ bell curve, which is disproportionately black and hispanic, to failure!
Posted by at 7:59 PM on October 6
“Canada’s black community has struggled with racial stereotyping and higher-than-average rates of poverty. The high school drop-out rate for blacks in the Toronto public school system has been estimated at about 40 per cent, almost double the rate for non-blacks”
Of course this poverty has absolutely nothing to do with dropping out of school, having higher levels of multiple kids out of wedlock and other factors such as drug use and higher levels of fathers who don’t support their offspring. It must all be racism.
Posted by at 9:18 PM on October 6
“What are South Asian and Chinese immigrants doing that somehow gets them ahead?”
That’s easy to answer - their IQs are naturally higher than is the case for blacks and Latin Americans. Nobody really wants to admit this, of course, but culture alone doesn’t account for everything. Just as some types of dogs bite more than others, so are some types of humans naturally smarter than others. Politically incorrect, yes, but just as true as saying the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.
On another note, having lived in Vancouver, British Columbia, for a number of years, I observed that although Chinese immigrants may not be prone to crime and do well in school and at moving up in the world, their anti-white bias and reluctance to learn English shocked me. No white bigot I ever encountered had as much pent-up racism and intolerance towards other races as the average Hong Kong immigrant you would run across. By dint of their icy attitude alone, they were adept at running whites out of neighbourhoods and taking over. Psychological warfare, rather than physical warfare (as in the case of blacks), you might say.
Posted by Matt at 9:28 PM on October 6
Let’s not be confused. It is man who developes culture and civilization, not the reverse. In other words, no man no culture. And it is the quality of genetic material that determines the level of culture/civilization achievement. No amount of money or the perfect environment can change the genetic handicaps of certain racial groups. The second and third generations of non-whites who are outside their native countries become lazy in an environment that is too providing for them (in Western countries). Eventually and hopefully, the whites will throw off their silly self imposed yoke of the “white’s man burden” before they lose their own level of civilization. Selective breeding needs to be imposed.
Posted by at 1:21 AM on October 7
What’s this? All this “inequality” in the great multicultural paradise of Canada? And here’s the real stunner - it sound suspiciously like the same story in America…and every other western nation on earth. So much for the multicult…
Posted by HH at 1:22 AM on October 7
This reporter is either very mean or very ill-informed. Not one mention of IQ and evolutionary history in the whole article. Perhaps Ms. Jimenez prefers keeping her head in the sand. Poor Ms. Hines will just have to keep wondering.
Posted by James Houston at 3:56 AM on October 7
Great news! I hope they all go bankrupt. Couldn’t happen to nicer people.
Posted by at 6:48 AM on October 7
How is it, that in Canada, which tends to be more liberal than the United States, Bantus are behind in test scores? Canada has never had the legacy of slavery, or the overt Jim Crow laws that the USA had. And still Bantus lag behind in education.
Patricia Hines worries about what Chinese and South Asians are ding to get ahead in education. How about applying themselves in the classroom?
Then, the last sentence in the article about sums it up - the values that parents of different races/ethnicities have, and their children meeting those values. So, in a sense, there is a diversity of VALUES among different groups. What’s wrong with that? Because of the diversity of values, there is a diversity in the percentages of groups receiving college degrees. Isn’t that what multiculturalists want, for crying out loud - diversity?
Posted by Soprano Fan at 7:30 AM on October 7
From the article:
“Blacks do fairly well in terms of education, …”
and
“The high school drop-out rate for blacks in the Toronto public school system has been estimated at about 40 per cent, almost double the rate for non-blacks …”
Huh? Is it just me folks?
- Realist in Atlanta
Posted by Realist in Atlanta at 11:49 AM on October 7
Well, there’s only one thing to do. Canada’s enlightened leadership must raise the standard of living of Mexicans and Blacks by any means neccessary. Just follow the U.S. example, no problem. Steal from the middle classes taxes, quotas, affirmative action, and of course, a strong commitment to the various power groups that represent blacks and Mexicans—with Canadians taxes. That should just about do the trick.
Posted by Bobby at 3:09 PM on October 7
There are various references throughout this article about how articulate and professional Ms. Hines is supposed to be.
”An articulate professional, Ms. Hines observed that she never encountered discrimination until she began studying for her master’s degree at the University of Toronto. She was shocked to discover there were no other black students or lecturers.
”When the class was asked to write the names of five black people, many could only come up with Lincoln Alexander, Ontario’s former lieutenant-governor, and Michael (Pinball) Clemons of the Toronto Argonauts football team”. My! Shock! Horror! Why aren’t these whites repeating the mantra preached throughout Afro-Caribbean Heritage Month in the Toronto school system where Afro-Caribbean participation is lauded to the skies (though they only came in numbers to Canada in the 1960’s and played absolutely no part in the foundation of the Canadian nation, as they weren’t even present).
The example in the above quote is this genius’ idea of discrimination? Or how about the following:
”What are South Asian and Chinese immigrants doing that somehow gets them ahead?”
Could it be following their tradition of studying and working hard instead of doing what blacks do, i.e., endlessly complain of discrimination and forming ‘Black Civil Rights Groups’ to right all these imagined grievances against the ‘evil white racists’.
Of course, if it were true then these black racists would never, ever emigrate to any majority-white society. But of course millions of them do, every year. Case closed.
Posted by at 7:56 PM on October 8