Residential Segregation and Socio-Economic Integration of Asians in Canadian Cities

ABSTRACT/RESUME Recent immigration trends have made Canada more ethnically diverse than ever before. The fastest growing groups are the Chinese and South Asians. Using recent Canadian census data, the paper examines whether this has resulted in greater concentration of these groups in selected Canadian cities. Differences among the cities are investigated. It is found that while these minority groups have distinct preferences for particular cities, concentration within cities has not increased. It is speculated that Canada's multiculturalism policies may have prevented greater segregation from the dominant groups, both in terms of residential location and in the labour market. Les tendances recentes en matiere d'immigration font que la population du Canada est ethniquement diversifiee comme elle ne l'a jamais ete. Les groupes dont les effectifs augmentent le plus rapidement sont les Chinois et les Asiatiques de l'Asie du Sud. A partir de donnees de recensement, cet article etudie si ces tendances recentes font que la ont retrouve une plus grande concentration d'immigrants dans certaines grandes villes canadicnnes. Nous etudions les differences entre les villes. Les resultats montrent que les immigrants preferent 5' etablir dans certaines villes plutot que dans d'autres, mais que la concentration au sein meme des villes n'a pas augmente. Nous suggerons que les politiques de multiculturalisme ont empeche une augmentation de la segregation residentielle et sur le marche du travail de la part des groupes majoritaires. One of the effects of recent immigration trends in Canada is to make Canada more ethnically diverse than ever before. The proportions of the charter groups of British and French have decreased while the proportions of other groups have increased in varying degrees. In the country as a whole, the proportion of British in either single or multiple origins in 1996 was, at 37 percent, well below half of the total. That proportion is expected to decline even further in the future. The French amounted to about a fifth of the total population in 1996 and are also expected to decline. The fastest growing groups are the who in 1996 formed about 11.2 percent of the total, a proportion expected to increase substantially in the coming years. Statistics Canada medium-growth projections show that the proportion of visible minorities will increase to 14.1 percent by 2001 and to 19.7 percent by 2016 (Statistics Canada 1996). Among the visible minorities, Asians make up 77 percent, the rest being primaril y Blacks. Though Asians come from a large number of countries and ethnic backgrounds, the two groups' that make up the bulk of the Asians are the Chinese and South Asians. There were 860,150 Chinese and 670,585 South Asians counted in the 1996 Canadian census, forming about 5.4 percent of the total Canadian population, a proportion that is rising significantly. In contrast, the Canadian aboriginal population, those who gave a response of North American Indian, Meti, or Innuit, amounted to only 2.8 percent of the Canadian population. In this paper we will focus on the assimilation and integration of the former groups into Canadian society. The rapid rise of minority groups in Canada raises concerns about their integration into the wider Canadian society. While there are various ways of conceptualizing and measuring integration, the one with which we will be most concerned with in this paper is that of spatial integration. Apart from understanding the settlement patterns of specific ethnic or racial groups, the reasons for studying residential segregation have a broader sociological significance. Residential segregation can be seen as a measure of how well or how poorly a group has integrated into the society at large. A group isolated in a particular area may not be fully participating in the housing and labour markets (Reitz 1990; Olsen and Kobayashi 1993). It is further argued that living in close proximity to others of the same ethnic or racial background, while increasing interaction within the group, tends to reduce interaction outside the group (Balakrishnan 2000). …

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