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by GFK_of_xmaspast 3447 days ago
Unskilled immigrants of today are parents of the skilled natural-born citizens of tomorrow.
4 comments

Not sure why you are being down-voted. I thought down-voting on HN is not for disagreement, but for bad behaviour. You bring up a valid opinion. It's like the arrogant crowd of HN is in favor of eugenics.

My parents came over to Canada as unskilled and my bro and I have masters level education and high salaries.

Also another HN thread a few weeks ago was on a Globe and Mail article titled "Chop Suey Nation". Article was about all the low-skilled chinese immigrants who start up restaurants in small towns - general theme is to get their children a better future.

I guess we are in the Trump era now.

Skilled parents are more likely to have skilled children. Even ignoring any possible hereditary intelligence correlation that might exist, having good job prospects will naturally heighten the chance of their children doing well.

There are also more than enough skilled people waiting to come here. With a backlog of skilled works the west has the opportunity to be selective (refugees are another subject). I personally support the idea that they should be more open to skilled workers. Although Canada already does a pretty good job compared to the US. Apparently the UK is looking into copying Canada's policies following Brexit.

But even here in Canada skilled immigrants often get associated with unskilled or illegal immigrants, or just generally misunderstood in terms of the value they bring, which (unfairly) puts pressure on reducing numbers.

It's quite difficult to immigrate to Canada as an unskilled immigrant.
Unless you're in need of a country to safely live in and qualify as a refugee, in which case Canada actually tries to do its part to house you.
Not necessarily. They could just be stuck in a cycle of poverty and be a drain on the system.
Well, there are no guarantees but Canada's education system increases the probability of skilled offspring.
[citation needed]

I went to school both in the United States and Ukraine and while the United States educational system was way more funded, it was not any better. So what if we have a TV in every classroom? Is watching educational movies a better use of time than getting a lecture from the teacher about it?

US is not Canada, education works very differently, especially funding.
Again, I don't see any evidence why funding education more would lead to better outcomes. Is there any evidence of this?

I'm sure schools in better founded areas have better students. This doesn't mean that the funding is the cause, those students also come from wealthier families.

The US also has a lot of under-performing minority groups like African-American and Latino students. So comparing US to Canada directly won't work either. Besides, each state in the US and each province in Canada actually administers public education, no the federal government. This makes it harder to compare.

But anyway, is there any evidence that public education improves the outcomes of people who immigrate into the country? For example, compare someone who immigrates with their parents at 17 or later vs. someone who immigrates at 7 years or younger. Do the younger immigrants have better outcomes?