Chinese-Canadians twice as likely to own and live in unaffordable homes, new data reveals
- Housing expert Andy Yan said pre-immigration wealth, other foreign capital, and a cultural emphasis on ownership may explain the cost-income disparity
- Chinese-Canadians are meanwhile about half as likely to live in rented accommodation, according to the government findings
Ethnic Chinese are twice as likely as other Canadians to own and live in housing that is unaffordable compared to their incomes, and only about half as likely to live in rented accommodation, according to a newly released government findings.
The data reveals a big gap between many Chinese-Canadians’ local earnings and their housing costs, that urban planning academic Andy Yan said could be explained by pre-immigration wealth and other foreign capital, mixed with local lending.
“But there are also the considerable sacrifices that, in spite of working poorly paid local jobs compared to their human capital and education, they are able to achieve home ownership via multigenerational households and overcrowding,” said Yan, director of the city programme at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver.
There was also a “cultural parameter” that emphasised ownership – even if it put finances under stress, added Yan. “There’s a Cantonese saying, that it’s better to eat less than lose your home,” he said.
The new data was released last week by Statistics Canada, based on its 2018 Canadian Housing Survey, a study of about 125,000 households nationwide.
