Canadian-born families held double the median wealth of recent immigrant families between 2016 and 2023, but less than established immigrants, according to a Statistics Canada study released Wednesday.
The study revealed that established immigrant families surpassed Canadian-born families in median wealth by 2023, particularly among families without a university degree.
“Recent immigrants, their wealth disparity with Canadian-born families at about the same age is actually increasing in terms of real dollar value,” Max Stick, Analyst for Statistics Canada, told OMNI News.
“But for established immigrants, people who have been here for about 10 or more years, they are in many cases faring better than the Canadian-born population at similar ages.”
The median net worth of established family immigrants in 2023 was almost $143,000 more than Canadian-born families.
“Time in Canada – the length of time that you’re here is an important factor. So, although the wealth disparity may be a lot larger at earlier years, when you first arrive in Canada — established immigrants do tend to catch up to the Canadian-born population,” Stick stressed.
Established immigrant families with a university-educated major income earner, however, trailed behind their Canadian-born counterparts. This wealth gap, however, narrowed over time.
StatCan looked into two groups, those with a university degree and those without a degree.
“What we found is that recent immigrants are further behind than Canadian-born and that’s especially the case for those without a university degree. So the gap in wealth — if you don’t have a university degree — comparatively to Canadians who don’t have a university degree, can actually be larger,” Stick added.
Equity in principal residences was the primary source of wealth across groups of Canadian-born, recent and established immigrants. But shifts in the housing market are creating challenges particularly for recent immigrants, who held less housing equity than their Canadian counterparts, although established immigrant families held more.
“That’s partly driven, we’ve seen in our analysis, most likely due to home ownership rates where recent immigrants are less likely to own homes. Likely due to the fact of where recent immigrant tends to settle. Recent immigrants tend to be in larger cities like Toronto and Vancouver, where housing prices can be higher and could be more difficult to enter the housing market.”
Pension assets were lower among both immigrant groups, due to challenges in the labour market. StatCan says there was a persistent gap for recent immigrant families but a reduced gap for established immigrant families.
“Recent immigrants when they come here, can face more barriers to employment and that can limit the types of jobs they can get and access to jobs where there are employer-sponsored pension plans,” Stick adds.
