Access to Post-Secondary Education among the Children of Canadian Immigrants by Dr. Ross Finnie of the University of Ottawa and Dr. Richard Mueller of the University of Lethbridge examines differences in PSE access rates between immigrant and non-immigrant children. The study finds that both first and second generation children of immigrants are much likelier to attend PSE, particularly university, than their non-immigrant counterparts by age 21. The authors conclude that these differences are partly due to various observable attributes, including parental educational attainment, since parental education has a strong impact on access to PSE in general and immigrant Canadians tend to be more educated than their non-immigrant Canadian counterparts due to the fact that Canada’s point-system for immigration systematically favours better-educated immigrants. But the story is not as simple as this, since important differences remain even after taking parental education into account, and children of immigrant parents with low education levels also tend to access university at higher rates than non-immigrant youth. Furthermore, the results become more complex once the data are examined based on region of origin, and the authors find that individuals from different countries of origin have very different likelihoods of attending PSE: those from China, other Asian countries, and Africa attend university at the highest rates; those from the Americas (excluding the U.S.) at the lowest rates. Various implications of the findings are discussed.

Regional Differences in Rural-Urban Participation Rates in College and University by Dr. Diane Looker of Mount St. Vincent University investigates the differences in urban versus rural PSE participation across Canada, and the results largely point in favour of urban populations.

Urban youth are significantly more likely to attend university than rural youth. When both college and university were taken into account, the gaps in PSE accessibility were generally smaller—yet, apart from the Prairie provinces, still statistically significant.

A somewhat different story emerges, however, when the characteristics of students and their families are taken into account. When this is done, the differences in overall PSE rates (college or university) are no longer significant, whereas the university gaps remain, except in Quebec. The author relates these findings to the different PSE systems in place across the country such as the greater number and wider geographical distribution of institutions in Atlantic Canada, the special nature of the CEGEP system in Quebec and the articulated systems in the West that permit students to start their university programs at local colleges.

For additional information on the MESA project or to download the abstracts or full research papers, please visit the MESA website at the MESA website.