加国为移民子女提供了最佳社会升迁机会

 

 

我的一位朋友李太是一个单身母亲。她以做保姆和打扫办公室清洁工作养大了两个孩子。上周，她兴奋地告诉我，她在多伦多湖滨买了一个公寓单位，因为她的儿子和女儿从加拿大大学的著名商科学校毕业后找到了体面的工作。

Li Tai, a friend of mine is a single mother who raised two children by working odd jobs as a nanny and an office cleaning worker. Last week, she told me with excitement that she bought a lakefront condo unit in Toronto, because her son and daughter got decent jobs in Canada after graduating from prominent business programs from Canadian universities.

对李太来说，加拿大为她的下一代提供了机会。她下一代的成功打破了中国人根深蒂固的观念，即父母的社会地位决定了孩子的前途。但的确中国年轻人很难摆脱其出生时就所属的社会阶层，仅仅通过苦苦自身奋斗而改变经济地位。

For Li, Canada provides a land of opportunity for her next generation, and her story has broken the engrained Chinese perception that the parent’s social class predetermines their children’s success. Indeed, in China, struggling with changing social statuses throughout the course of their life, young people have been shackled to the economic class into which they were born in.

“养种像种，冬瓜养儿像吊桶！”这句话或许最佳描述了中国有限的社会升值空间。来自中国的一项60名大学生争取一大银行职位之研究为此提供了最佳验证。 这项昭示子女的未来与其父亲社会地位息息相关的研究一经发表便在中国社交媒体上广为流传。

“Apples never fall far from the tree!” maybe the best expression to describe the rigid social mobility issue in China.  That expression can be best evidenced by a study in China that targeted 60 interns competing for coveted positions in a prominent bank. The study, with a result highlighting the close resemblance of children’s future to the social status of their fathers, instantly went viral on Chinese social media.

的确， 中国的高考制度为中国年轻人提供了某种公平竞争的平台，让那些城市贫困家庭的孩子有了接受大学教育的机会。但是，这些孩子在从大学毕业成家立业后，是其家庭雄厚的背景决定了他们的事业成功。据研究显示，父母的财富和社会特权才是他们孩子能否实现其生活和事业目标的铺路石。在一个崇尚特权阶层，同时小瞧弱势群体的中国社会里，父母所拥有的社会和经济地位不仅为子女找工作提供了贿赂当权者的手段，而且还赋予其子女足够的特权自信心，让其得以施展个人魅力去驰骋商场。

Indeed, to a certain degree, China’s Gao Kao system has leveled the playing field for Chinese youths, giving opportunities for children from underprivileged urban families to obtain a university education. However, their family’s background predicts their career achievements as they join the workforce after graduation and start families. According to the study, it was the financial wealth and social privileges of the parents that had paved a smooth path for their children to achieve their desired life outcomes. In a society that admires the privileged class but looks down on the marginalized groups, the social and financial power possessed by ones’ parents would not only provide their children with the means to bribe the decision makers, but also entitle them to a privileged ego, allowing them to use their personal appeal to conquer the business world. 

斯坦福大学最近的一项研究显示了某一国家中孩子的收入与父亲的相关度。在这项研究中，中国名列第二，远高于加拿大和美国等许多国家，显示出中国孩子的前程与自己的父母地位的强相关性。

A Sandford University study shows how likely a son’s earnings in a country resembles to their father’s. China ranked the second in the study -- far above many other nations – such as Canada and US, showing one of the strongest links between a child’s life path to that of their parents. 

在中国严格的户籍管理制度下，中国流动人口阶层欲改变社会和经济地位要比城市居民困难得多。而据加拿大“环球邮报”采访的一位社会学家，“上海流动人口群状况要比加拿大和美国的移民要糟得多”。加拿大移民父母所生子女可即刻成为加拿大公民，而中国流动人口的子女却仍然是没有城市身份的流动人口。得不到令人垂涎的“户口”，中国流动人口的子女被剥夺了接受教育的机会，也就根本不可能改变自己的社会地位。

China’s migrant demographic has a far worse social mobility issue than their urban counterparts – with Hukou being the prime culprit.  “Migrants in Shanghai fare much worse compared with immigrants in Canada and US”, a social study professor was quoted in a Globe and Mail article. Unlike children to immigrants in Canada who were born with citizenship, children born to migrant parents in China are still migrants. Lacking the coveted document HuKou, they are deprived of access to education and opportunities to improve their social status. 

渥太华大学的一位教授的研究结果显示，相比之下，加拿大是发达国家中经济和社会地位升迁度最高的社会之一。研究表明，加拿大父母的收入几乎对成年子女收入没有多大影响，其影响程度低于美英，甚至包括法国和瑞典在内的一些欧洲国家。

In contrast, Canada is one of the most socially mobile societies in the developed world, according to a study by a professor with the University of Ottawa. The research shows that the association between the income of parents and their adult children is weaker than the US and Britain, and even some European countries including France and Sweden.

大量的证据表明，加拿大为移民提供了最好的改变社会和经济地位的机会。据统计，尽管第一代移民面临贫困和艰辛，但他们的孩子会借助加拿大的教育和资历，获得远好于其父母的经济和社会地位上，并享受远大于其父母的成功。就移民人口来说，其子女从低收入向高收入转变之比例非常之高，远远高于加拿大当地人口。

Abundant evidence shows that Canada provides the best social mobility to immigrants. According to StatsCan, despite the poverty and hardships that the first generation of immigrant face, their children, armed with Canadian education and credentials, are faring much better than their parents and enjoy the greater success in the country. Children to immigrant families are rising from the lowest to the highest of income scale at a high rate – much higher than the most local Canadian demographic.

而移民子女们的成功是对李太这些父母的最好奖赏。李太说：“我的孩子们将在加拿大将过上美好的生活。这也是我远隔重洋，移民加国的原因！”

And their success is the best reward for immigrants like Li Tai. “They (their children) will live a good life in Canada,” says Li. “That was why I uprooted my life and immigrated to Canada!”