Recent Immigrants, Earlier Immigrants and the Canadian-Born: Personal and Social Trust
1. Introduction
Trust is a “complex and multidimensional phenomenon” (Khodyakov 2007, 115) and a key element of social life. Trust is often used as an indicator of social capital (Bryant and Norris 2002), social cohesion, and is at the heart of many conceptualizations of social integration (Kunz 2005). The degree to which immigrants and the Canadian-born express trust in their family, neighbourhood, as well as other Canadians has powerful micro individual, meso community and macro societal implications. For recent immigrants, trust is an important ingredient of successful integration in that it lubricates social life (Putnam 2000, 136) and enables the building of social, human and cultural capital.
The degree to which immigrants trust their fellow citizens facilitates positive social outcomes. For example, Putnam (2000) argues that individuals who have higher levels of trust in their fellow citizens tend to volunteer more often, contribute more to charity and are more engaged in community organizations. Furthermore, Soroka et al. (2007) found that individuals who are more trusting are also more likely to have higher self-assessed health levels.
Trust is seen as very important in social relations and interactions, particularly in increasingly interconnected times. Research in this area has suggested that an increase in cultural and ethnic diversity leads to decreased levels of generalized trust and community cohesion (Putnam 2007; Stolle et al. 2008). Empirical studies have found that “levels of generalized trust are not just lower among ethnic minorities themselves, but they are also suppressed among majority populations when they face diverse surroundings” (Hooghe et al. 2008, 199). According to the 2006 Census, the proportion of foreign-born population is the highest it has been in 75 years [Note 1], additionally, the increase in cultural-linguistic diversity of Canada’s population makes this research particularly relevant [Note 2].
This report draws on data from the Canadian sample of the fifth wave of the World Values Survey, 2006. This study builds upon the work of Neil Nevitte to examine personal and social trust. The analysis compares the responses of recent and earlier immigrants with the Canadian-born population to questions about levels of trust in family members, people they know, people in their neighbourhood, Canadians in general, recent immigrants, as well as people they meet for the first time.
The research examines the following questions: How do recent immigrants, earlier immigrants and the Canadian-born population compare in the degree of trust they place in different groups? Are there theoretical dimensions of trust (personal and social) reflected in the data? Differences between the levels of trust may provide insight into the degree in which recent and earlier immigrants are integrating into Canadian society as well as provide insight into effectiveness of policies and programs targeted towards immigrant integration.
This report begins with a review of the literature on the concept of trust and its dimensions, the impact of immigration and diversity on trust levels, as well as Canadian studies on immigration, diversity, social cohesion and trust. Next, a discussion on the methodology and results is presented.
Notes
- [Note 1] According to the 2006 Census, 19.8% of the population of Canada is foreign-born (Statistics Canada 2007).
- [Note 2] According to the 2006 Census, 75% of immigrants who arrived between 2001 and 2006 belong to a visible minority group (Statistics Canada 2008b), and 70.2% of the foreign-born population report a mother tongue other than English or French (Statistics Canada 2008a).