We just finished up three days of snowboarding and skiing in Tremblant, Quebec and we’re now in Montreal closing out the long weekend. I am arguably Toronto’s greatest fan and supporter, but I continue to admit that Montreal is the coolest city in Canada.
In other news, Theresa Qiu and Grant Schellenberg recently authored a Statistics Canada report looking at the weekly earnings of visible minorities and white people across the country. The study focuses on Canadian-born individuals aged 25 to 44 who were gainfully employed and making money in 2015.
The reason why they isolated the study to Canadian-born visible minorities is that they wanted to eliminate the noise around new immigrants who may be struggling with the language(s), the recognition of their foreign credentials, or some other variable.
In this case, every individual that factors into the study was born in Canada and, in theory, had access to similar sorts of opportunities. Of course, we know this isn’t always the case, but it’s an attempt an equal baseline.
The findings are pretty interesting.
Korean, Japanese, and South Asian men all tend to earn more than white males (which formed the baseline for the study). More than 60% of Chinese and Korean men also have a bachelor’s degree or higher, whereas only 24% of white males are in the same position.
This is an important data point because we know that economic outcomes tend be positively correlated with educational attainment. The benefits of education also tend to compound later in life and this study only focuses on people aged 25 to 44. So the spreads could widen.
We just finished up three days of snowboarding and skiing in Tremblant, Quebec and we’re now in Montreal closing out the long weekend. I am arguably Toronto’s greatest fan and supporter, but I continue to admit that Montreal is the coolest city in Canada.
In other news, Theresa Qiu and Grant Schellenberg recently authored a Statistics Canada report looking at the weekly earnings of visible minorities and white people across the country. The study focuses on Canadian-born individuals aged 25 to 44 who were gainfully employed and making money in 2015.
The reason why they isolated the study to Canadian-born visible minorities is that they wanted to eliminate the noise around new immigrants who may be struggling with the language(s), the recognition of their foreign credentials, or some other variable.
In this case, every individual that factors into the study was born in Canada and, in theory, had access to similar sorts of opportunities. Of course, we know this isn’t always the case, but it’s an attempt an equal baseline.
The findings are pretty interesting.
Korean, Japanese, and South Asian men all tend to earn more than white males (which formed the baseline for the study). More than 60% of Chinese and Korean men also have a bachelor’s degree or higher, whereas only 24% of white males are in the same position.
This is an important data point because we know that economic outcomes tend be positively correlated with educational attainment. The benefits of education also tend to compound later in life and this study only focuses on people aged 25 to 44. So the spreads could widen.
One the factors that is surely influencing the above findings is that visible minorities are overwhelmingly urban. About 60% of visible minorities in Canada live in just three cities: Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. This compares to only 27% of white people.
Again, an important data point given that people in big cities tend to earn more than those in smaller communities.
I tweeted this out last night while watching old reruns of Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown series. This was a great show. If I were to give everything up and become a YouTuber, this is the kind of travel and food channel I would want to make, except that I would naturally have to add in some equal parts around architecture, planning, and real estate.
The responses to my tweet were of course mixed. Some people agreed and some people didn't. And a few people provided examples of great cities that aren't particularly known for their openness to new entrants -- places like Tokyo. This kind of response is not at all surprising given how divisive this topic has always been throughout history.
But here's what I was thinking:
1/ There are some obvious current case studies. Consider places like Toronto and Miami, where foreign born residents now make up the majority of the population. These are two fast growing and dynamic cities that wouldn't be anywhere near as interesting without their immigrant populations. Certainly the food wouldn't be as good.
2/ Many of the most beautiful cultures in the world are the result of different cultures coming together. Brazil is one example that comes to mind. Throughout history they have been one of the largest recipients of immigrants in the western hemisphere. Sadly, Brazil was also the last country in the western world to abolish slavery.
3/ Rome and Tokyo were cited (in the comments) as two great cities that frankly aren't all that diverse. According to Wikipedia, less than 10% of Rome's population is non-Italian. But Rome, while nice, is provincial these days. And Tokyo, while awesome, has a bit of a demographic problem.
4/ Even if you think a place doesn't have a lot of immigrants and maybe isn't all that diverse, it is still probably the result of diverse cultures coming together at multiple points throughout history. Maybe because of immigration. Or maybe because of something bad like war. Think of the Moors from northern Africa who crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and conquered the Iberian Peninsula.
5/ An openness to new people could signal and probably does signal an openness to other things. And since we are living in a world that thrives on innovation and new ideas, being open strikes me as being a fairly good and useful characteristic to have.
6/ Lastly, I come from a family of immigrants. I self-identify as being entirely Canadian. But I had to come from somewhere (multiple places, in fact). And so it strikes me as being odd and entirely selfish to want to block the flow of people now that I'm here and established.
When I was in my early 20s, I spent a summer living and working in Taipei and Hong Kong. It was a wonderful experience. I'll never forget my apartment in Hong Kong's Causeway Bay. It was a small single room with a small bed and an even smaller bathroom. The bed didn't fit me -- at all -- and my legs would hang over the bottom of it. I couldn't stop hitting my shins on the bottom of the frame at night. The bathroom didn't have a dedicated shower, just a hose coming out of the wall. So everything would get wet. It also took me 15 minutes the first morning I showered to figure out how to make the water hot. Eventually I got it.
One the factors that is surely influencing the above findings is that visible minorities are overwhelmingly urban. About 60% of visible minorities in Canada live in just three cities: Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. This compares to only 27% of white people.
Again, an important data point given that people in big cities tend to earn more than those in smaller communities.
I tweeted this out last night while watching old reruns of Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown series. This was a great show. If I were to give everything up and become a YouTuber, this is the kind of travel and food channel I would want to make, except that I would naturally have to add in some equal parts around architecture, planning, and real estate.
The responses to my tweet were of course mixed. Some people agreed and some people didn't. And a few people provided examples of great cities that aren't particularly known for their openness to new entrants -- places like Tokyo. This kind of response is not at all surprising given how divisive this topic has always been throughout history.
But here's what I was thinking:
1/ There are some obvious current case studies. Consider places like Toronto and Miami, where foreign born residents now make up the majority of the population. These are two fast growing and dynamic cities that wouldn't be anywhere near as interesting without their immigrant populations. Certainly the food wouldn't be as good.
2/ Many of the most beautiful cultures in the world are the result of different cultures coming together. Brazil is one example that comes to mind. Throughout history they have been one of the largest recipients of immigrants in the western hemisphere. Sadly, Brazil was also the last country in the western world to abolish slavery.
3/ Rome and Tokyo were cited (in the comments) as two great cities that frankly aren't all that diverse. According to Wikipedia, less than 10% of Rome's population is non-Italian. But Rome, while nice, is provincial these days. And Tokyo, while awesome, has a bit of a demographic problem.
4/ Even if you think a place doesn't have a lot of immigrants and maybe isn't all that diverse, it is still probably the result of diverse cultures coming together at multiple points throughout history. Maybe because of immigration. Or maybe because of something bad like war. Think of the Moors from northern Africa who crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and conquered the Iberian Peninsula.
5/ An openness to new people could signal and probably does signal an openness to other things. And since we are living in a world that thrives on innovation and new ideas, being open strikes me as being a fairly good and useful characteristic to have.
6/ Lastly, I come from a family of immigrants. I self-identify as being entirely Canadian. But I had to come from somewhere (multiple places, in fact). And so it strikes me as being odd and entirely selfish to want to block the flow of people now that I'm here and established.
When I was in my early 20s, I spent a summer living and working in Taipei and Hong Kong. It was a wonderful experience. I'll never forget my apartment in Hong Kong's Causeway Bay. It was a small single room with a small bed and an even smaller bathroom. The bed didn't fit me -- at all -- and my legs would hang over the bottom of it. I couldn't stop hitting my shins on the bottom of the frame at night. The bathroom didn't have a dedicated shower, just a hose coming out of the wall. So everything would get wet. It also took me 15 minutes the first morning I showered to figure out how to make the water hot. Eventually I got it.
Despite all this, I remember being enchanted with Hong Kong. Here was this tiny little place with very little developable land that had managed to become, through trade, finance, real estate and other things, one of the wealthiest places in the world. Capitalism! I could also feel the connection to Toronto. Hong Kong has one of the largest Canadian expat communities in the world. In fact, I ran into one of my high school math teachers in a bar in LKF. That was wild. He had moved there with his wife to teach. I suppose because of all of this, I have tended to follow the region a bit more closely.
Last July, the British government promised a path to citizenship for the 3 million or so Hong Kong residents who hold or are eligible for a British National Overseas passport. This passport, as I understand it, was given to citizens at the time of the 1997 handover. Though I don't know how utility was actually derived from it over the years. Before last year's announcement, this document didn't include the right to stay in the UK. However, now it does. And the UK government expects that some 300,000 Hong Kong residents are going to take advantage of this in the first five years of the program. And indeed, according to the Financial Times, 2020 was the first year since SARS back in 2003 that the region lost people -- it had a net outflow of about 39,800 people.
What will this mean for Hong Kong? Well, Bank of America estimated earlier this year that capital outflows from Hong Kong could reach £25 billion in the first year of the program. But maybe this is being too conservative. Here in Canada, capital outflows from Hong Kong hit a record last year at C$43.6 billion. But this too could be an underestimation, as it doesn't include transfers below C$10,000 and probably a bunch of other transfer methods. How much money is actually flowing outward?
This weekend the Financial Times published the above survey results showing sentiment around leaving Hong Kong. Surveys are, of course, a funny thing. Saying you might probably potentially do something is a lot different than actually doing something. But for what it's worth, about a quarter of pro-democracy supporters (which is maybe half of the population?) responded by saying that, yes, they would be prepared to leave. If you include those who responded no, but that they would reconsider and leave if things got worse, the number increases to about 70%.
I don't know how meaningful all of this becomes for Hong Kong. Time will tell. But it has me thinking about my tiny bed and tiny shower in Causeway Bay.
Despite all this, I remember being enchanted with Hong Kong. Here was this tiny little place with very little developable land that had managed to become, through trade, finance, real estate and other things, one of the wealthiest places in the world. Capitalism! I could also feel the connection to Toronto. Hong Kong has one of the largest Canadian expat communities in the world. In fact, I ran into one of my high school math teachers in a bar in LKF. That was wild. He had moved there with his wife to teach. I suppose because of all of this, I have tended to follow the region a bit more closely.
Last July, the British government promised a path to citizenship for the 3 million or so Hong Kong residents who hold or are eligible for a British National Overseas passport. This passport, as I understand it, was given to citizens at the time of the 1997 handover. Though I don't know how utility was actually derived from it over the years. Before last year's announcement, this document didn't include the right to stay in the UK. However, now it does. And the UK government expects that some 300,000 Hong Kong residents are going to take advantage of this in the first five years of the program. And indeed, according to the Financial Times, 2020 was the first year since SARS back in 2003 that the region lost people -- it had a net outflow of about 39,800 people.
What will this mean for Hong Kong? Well, Bank of America estimated earlier this year that capital outflows from Hong Kong could reach £25 billion in the first year of the program. But maybe this is being too conservative. Here in Canada, capital outflows from Hong Kong hit a record last year at C$43.6 billion. But this too could be an underestimation, as it doesn't include transfers below C$10,000 and probably a bunch of other transfer methods. How much money is actually flowing outward?
This weekend the Financial Times published the above survey results showing sentiment around leaving Hong Kong. Surveys are, of course, a funny thing. Saying you might probably potentially do something is a lot different than actually doing something. But for what it's worth, about a quarter of pro-democracy supporters (which is maybe half of the population?) responded by saying that, yes, they would be prepared to leave. If you include those who responded no, but that they would reconsider and leave if things got worse, the number increases to about 70%.
I don't know how meaningful all of this becomes for Hong Kong. Time will tell. But it has me thinking about my tiny bed and tiny shower in Causeway Bay.
