A new Globe and Mail article featured a UBC study which discovered that the main motivation of affluent Chinese immigrants is to find better homes for their families, not to make more money.
The study was conducted by UBC sociology professor Nathanael Lauster and PhD student Jing Zhao and used interviews with 31 immigrants or would-be immigrants from Beijing to Vancouver.
“Migrants tend to settle in and settle down with their families first, enjoying leisure time and making a home,” said the authors. “Then they gradually begin to look for market work. Often times they take jobs as part of settling in and stabilizing their lives into a new routine, rather than the other way around.”
