ARCHIVED – Recent Immigrants, Earlier Immigrants and the Canadian–Born: Association with Collective Identities

4. Results and discussion (continued)

4.2 Cross-tabulation analysis

In order to gain further insight into these preliminary findings, cross-tabulations were run for each of the population groups (recent immigrants, earlier immigrants, and the Canadian-born) as well as for the total population. [note 7] Layers were added using a number of socio-economic and demographic variables including sex, age, education, household income, occupation, employment status, race, and size of town. One trend emerged: although race is not related to substantial difference in the response patterns for earlier immigrants and the Canadian-born populations, for recent immigrants, statistically significant findings suggest that racial category influences the degree to which one identifies as a member of their local community, citizen of their province/region, citizen of Canada, and as a world citizen. [note 8] This section will take an in-depth analysis of race for the recent immigrant population.

It should be noted that although ‘ethnicity’ is the measured variable in WVS documentation, the categories are interviewer-observed categories that are very broadly defined (e.g., Caucasian, Black) and reflects more accurately race rather than ethnicity. Also, because the racial category is an interviewer-observed response, there may be differences between interviewer observations and interviewee self- identification. Moreover, it may be difficult for the interviewer to categorize individuals who are of mixed backgrounds.

For recent immigrants, it appears that Caucasians, East Asians, and Arabs have the lowest rate of ‘strongly’ identifying as a member of their local community (see Figure 4-5). Only 15.7% of Caucasians, 17.7% of Arabs, and 19.5% of East Asians ‘strongly agree’ that they view themselves as a member of their community. Furthermore, 20.4% of Caucasians, 11.3% of Arabs, and 10.2% of East Asians state that they ‘disagree’ and do not view themselves as a member of their local community. The Black population has the highest rate of responding that they either ‘strongly agree’ or ‘agree’ that they view themselves as a member of their local community (97.3%), compared to 93.4% of South Asians, 89.3% of East Asians, 85.4% of Arabs and 77.6% of Caucasians.

Figure 4-6 shows that the Black population has the lowest rate of responding that they either ‘strongly agree’ or ‘agree’ that they view themselves as a citizen of their province or region (75.7%) compared to 89.9% of Caucasians, 91.2% of East Asians, 93.9% of South Asians and 90.5% of the Arab population.

Figure 4-5: Recent immigrant population: Identification as a member of local community

Source: World Values Survey, 2006

Figure 4-6: Recent immigrant population: Identification as a citizen of province/region

Source: World Values Survey, 2006

Figure 4-7: Recent immigrant population: Identification as a citizen of Canada

Source: World Values Survey, 2006

Figure 4-7 shows that within the recent immigrant population, East Asians have the lowest levels of strongly identifying as a citizen of Canada; only 27.9% of East Asian respondents reported that they ‘strongly agree’ that they view themselves as a citizen of Canada. [note 9] The Black population have the lowest rate of responding that they either ‘strongly agree’ or ‘agree’ that they view themselves as a citizen of Canada (89.5%) compared to 93.9% of Caucasians, 100% of South Asians, 95.1% of East Asians and 96.8% of Arab populations.

The lower rates of positive identification with Canada and to one’s province/region among Canada’s Black recent immigrant population may be due to experiences such as discrimination and racism that undermine trust and attachment to Canadian society. Results from the 2002 Ethnic Diversity Survey (EDS) show that the Black population is the most likely of all visible minority groups to report experiences of discrimination or unfair treatment because of ethno-cultural characteristics: 32% of Blacks compared to 21% of South Asians and 15% of Chinese reported having these types of experiences ‘sometimes’ or ‘often’ in the previous five years (Statistics Canada 2003, 18).

However, it should be noted that there are a variety of reasons why individuals immigrate to Canada. For refugees, the reasons for coming to Canada are likely very different than other immigrant sub-groups (e.g., economic and family class immigrants). Therefore, refugees may have a different sense of attachment to Canada as a result of the circumstances under which they arrived. In the last decade, Canada has been accepting more refugees from Africa. For example, in 2006, Ethiopia, Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Somalia were among the top 10 source countries for refugees selected under the Resettlement Program (CIC 2007). This may provide insight into the lower levels of attachment to Canada as a whole expressed by the Black recent immigrant population.

The WVS data also indicates that the Black population exhibits the highest rate of all racial groups of identifying as a member of their local community. These results require further in-depth analysis.

Figure 4-8: Recent immigrant population: Identification as a world citizen

Source: World Values Survey, 2006

Finally, the findings show that the South Asian population expresses the highest levels of positive identification as a world citizen whereas the East Asian population showcases the lowest levels (see Figure 4-8): 97.5% of the South Asian population either ‘strongly agree’ or ‘agree’ that they view themselves as a world citizen, compared to 88.5% of Caucasians, 86.9% of the Black population, 85.7% of the Arab population and 80.4% of East Asians.

Footnotes

[Note 7] "Total population" figures use data from the core sample only (excludes the new immigrant sample), in order to maintain the representativeness of the data. Adding in the new immigrant sample data would bias the sample towards recent immigrants.

[Note 8] Due to insufficient cell counts the category ‘other’ was not included in this analysis.

[Note 9] Compared to 34.7% of Caucasians, 39.7% of Arabs, 42.1% of Blacks, and 60.5% of South Asians.

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