Recent Immigration and the Formation of Visible Minority Neighbourhoods
in Canada's Large Cities
by Feng Hou
Business and Labour Market Analysis Division
Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series, No. 221
Also, "Spatial assimilation of racial minorities in Canada's immigrant gateway cities". Urban Studies 43 (7): 1191–1213.
Context
Ethnic neighbourhoods—neighbourhoods with a significant presence
of a minority group—in Canada's large cities have long been
a vivid reflection of the adjustment process experienced by successive
waves of immigrants. Since recent immigrants are culturally different
from earlier European immigrants, it is not clear whether rapidly expanding
visible minority neighbourhoods in major Canadian cities will be transitional
or enduring.
Objective(s)
This study addresses two questions. First, at the metropolitan area
level, is the rapid expansion of visible minority neighbourhoods primarily
associated with the increase in visible minority populations due to
immigration or with a rise in their overall level of residential concentration?
Second, at the neighbourhood level, does the formation of visible minority
neighbourhoods predominantly involve a process in which established
non-visible minority residents move out in large number when a visible
minority population moves into a neighbourhood?
Findings
Minority neighbourhoods, defined as census tracts with over 30% of
their population from a single visible minority group, increased in
number from 6 to 254 between 1981 and 2001. Most of these neighbourhoods
were formed through a partial replacement of non-visible minority residents
by visible minority group members. However, there was no evidence that
the partial replacement would lead to an exclusive occupancy of some
neighbourhoods by one visible minority group.
The emergence of minority neighbourhoods was associated more with a
large increase in minority groups' share of the city population
from immigration than with an increase in their tendency to concentrate
in particular neighbourhoods. Visible minority immigrants arriving in
the 1980s and 1990s were more residentially concentrated than earlier
arrivals, and their level of concentration remained stable with time
living in Canada. Overall, large visible minority groups were not as
concentrated as were Blacks in large U.S. cities or as some non-visible
minority groups were in the earlier decades in Canada.
Data source(s)
The 1981 to 2001 Canadian Census 20% sample files.
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the full publication.
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