Exploring the Refugee Class Mix in Ethnic Inflows of Immigrants to Canada
Date
2018-03-30
Authors
Mata, Fernando
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Abstract
Description
This study carried out five demographic explorations related to the refugee class mix in 219 ethnic inflows of immigrants entering Canada during 1980 and 2016. The population represented by these inflows comprised 5.6 million immigrants. The data was drawn from two special 2016 census tables that collected information on immigrants' admission categories (economic, family and refugee) and their reported ethnic ancestries. Explorations focused on the refugee mix in large and small inflows, time changes, demographic configurations and their insertion on receiving ethnic populations. Inflows comprising Polish, Vietnamese, Sri Lankan, Afghani and Iraqi ethnic ancestries had the highest levels of refugee class mix among the larger inflows while those comprising Assyrian, Burundian, Laotian, Rwandan and Tibetan ancestries had the highest levels of refugee class mix among the smaller size inflows. Admission class polarizations were observed in the refugee mix of ethnic inflows. Census data suggested that there were substantive differences in terms of their demographic configurations and that high refugee class mix inflows inserted themselves into younger ethnic populations residing in the major metropolitan areas of the country. The refugee mix in ethnic inflows has most likely produced various impacts on the ethnic community-building process at the demographic, community formation, immigrant integration, human and social capital accumulation level.