Filipino-Canadian youth’s English fluency, hard work not enough for upward mobility — study | Inquirer Global Nation

Worrisome trend of downward mobility (see earlier coverage of same study Understanding Intergenerational Social Mobility: Filipino Youth in Canada » Institute for Research on Public Policy):

Canadian-born Filipino men present a somewhat similar picture, graduating from university at rates that exceed Canadian averages,” Kelly said. “However, they are well behind several other groups.”

“It is notable that Filipino men perform considerably worse than Filipino women in terms of university education, and in terms of failure to attain any certification at all including high-school graduation, but this is a gendered pattern of uneven achievements that holds true for all population groups,” Kelly added.

Kelly found that 37 percent of Filipino parents are degree holders, but only 25 percent of their daughters and 13 percent of their sons graduate from university. This contrasts with the fact that while only 23 percent of Chinese parents that are degree holders, 68 percent of their daughters and 58 percent of their sons graduate from university.

Kelly is not the first to present this trend. In 2009, another study using the 2002 Ethnic Diversity Survey “found that intergenerational upward mobility in terms of rates of university education, occurred between the first and second generations in all immigrant communities except for the Filipino and black visible minorities.”

Another study in 2011 using Ontario census data from 1996 and 2006 showed that Filipinos and Americans were the only groups in which second generation youth “did not tend to surpass their fathers in terms of educational attainment although in both cases, the fathers were very well-educated.

….Kelly presented occupational data suggesting this apprehension about English may be a factor in Filipino parents’ low level of involvement in their children’s education. In addition, the shift schedules of nanny mothers and manufacturing worker fathers contribute to the poor educational attainment level, he wrote.

“The downward mobility and de-professionalization experienced by parents upon arrival in Canada has an impact on parenting style and authority,” Kelly wrote. “One respondent poignantly explained that his father had been an executive in the Philippines; security guards saluted as he arrived at his office each morning. On arriving in Canada, he had to take a job cleaning toilets.”

Fil-Canadian youth’s English fluency, hard work not enough for upward mobility — study | Inquirer Global Nation.