One reason for the discrepancy may be that immigrant families are much more likely to put their money into real estate. "Compared with Canadian-born families, immigrant families generally hold a greater share of their wealth in housing but a smaller share in [registered pension plan] assets," the data agency said. On the flip side, one third of the wealth gain for Canadian-born families is because of increases in the value of pension plan assets. Established immigrant families had a debt to income ratio of 2.17 in 2016, compared with 1.32 for Canadian-born families. "Most of the difference was due to the larger mortgages carried by immigrant families," Statistics Canada said.

Source: CBC News April 16, 2019 18:11 UTC