Geographically Indirect Immigration to Canada: Description and Analysis

Abstract

This article is concerned with geographically indirect immigration to Canada over the period 1968–1988. A geographically indirect immigrant is an individual legally admitted to Canada whose country of last permanent residence differs from country of birth. Records maintained by Employment and Immigration Canada on every immigrant legally admitted over the period were used in the study. Relative to geographically direct immigrants, geographically indirect immigrants tend to be older, more educated, and more highly skilled. Moreover, if they were not born in an English or French speaking country, indirect immigrants are more likely to speak English and/or French capably than direct migrants born in such countries. The study also contains bivariate logit estimates of a model of geographically indirect Canadian immigration. This model suggests that indirect migrants tend to be influenced by personal characteristics (age, sex, marital status, occupation, language ability), as well as by various characteristics of the country of birth (distance from Canada, income level, political conditions).

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