 [1]
Introduction
What a difference ten years can make ! is the result of a series of surveys on the same cohort of immigrants who all arrived in 1989. At the same time, the release of the report marks the end of their journey as immigrants. Ten years later, the settlement process is either entirely or very nearly complete. However, as we will see in the following pages, this transition was not without its ups and downs and adjustments.
In 1989, immigration to Quebec was booming [1] following the "lull" in the early 1980s. This immigration is no longer nourished by traditional sources ; it pours in from poorer countries and from former Eastern Bloc countries. Montreal attracts the majority of immigrants admitted to Quebec. [2] The greater Montreal area is therefore the focal point as concerns integration.
How is this integration accomplished ? Very little data fully documents the multiple dimensions of this subject and even less so the dynamics of settlement. The following questions are not often answered : How long does it take for immigrants to find a job or to settle down ? Do they continue their education once they are settled in Quebec and do their studies affect their chances of finding a job ? What types of networks do they establish in Quebec ? Etc.
Data generally available offers us, at best, statistical snapshots of a given cohort. [3] For example, time series on the workforce offer temporal information, but the history of each respondent is only known at the time of the survey (or the preceding week). No biographical data about them is gathered, excluding any explanation of the studied events (unemployment for example). In addition, remember that these series of data require one survey per month !
The study of the settlement of immigrants aimed to address the vast issue of integration by covering not only many aspects of integration, but also by recording this data dynamically and longitudinally. Residence, employment, education and training, non-employment, the household and its make-up, and citizenship are some of the aspects covered by the survey for which we gathered dated information. In other words, we know exactly when events occurred in each person's calendar. The descriptive approach we took allowed us to cover a large range of the aspects of settlement, as one can see by the number of chapters in this document. However, "descriptive" is not a synonym for "simplicity" and "ease". The time aspect inherent in the study of the settlement of newcomers makes the data complex. We observed what developed in [2] respondents' professional, residential and academic lives each week. Our observations therefore varied over time. How then can we present all the data, the process shall we say, without omitting any important elements ? Presenting this data would, at first glance, appear simple. However, to do so, we had to rely on a number of advanced but recognized and robust statistical techniques. Some graphs use a few thousand numbers to describe what is going on. Others are based on estimation techniques that ensure reliable results by considering all the respondents, including those who were not observed over the entire ten years.
This survey is one of only a handful of studies in Canada that focus on a cohort of immigrants. The data collection method, now recognized and applied to many other fields of research (demography, infant mortality, residential mobility, etc.) continues to evolve. The study on the settlement of newcomers places us at least at the same level as other longitudinal studies carried out elsewhere in the country and the world.
"Trois années d'établissement d'immigrants admis au Québec en 1989" [4] presented many aspects of the first three years of settlement in Quebec. In some respects, the present study completes the portrait of processes initiated 8, 9 and 10 years ago. [5] In addition to the aspects already covered in "Trois années...", this document addresses other, new aspects that need to be looked at given the length of time elapsed. Also, since processes are not all the same for everyone, most of the aspects addressed are described based on the respondents' gender, immigration class, age at arrival5 and level of education at arrival. [6] Our observation period was sufficiently long to identify a number of major trends within this cohort of immigrants.
Here is each chapter and its content :
Chapter 1 : Essential if you wish to understand the nature of the data. It concerns the way the survey was carried out. In particular, the completion of various rounds of the survey, the dating system and sampling are addressed.
Chapter 2 : Presents a number of the respondents' characteristics.
Chapter 3 : Concerns residence : residential occupation status and the duration of residence are examined.
Chapter 4 : Presents the residential and spatial mobility of respondents over time.
Chapter 5 : Concerns employment, the opportunities respondents have to be employed over time, the duration of these jobs, professional trajectories, profiles of integration into the job market, and the main characteristics of the positions they hold.
Chapter 6 : Concerns periods of non-employment. On the one hand, we observe the duration of these periods, and on the other, the likelihood of being in this situation every week.
Chapter 7 : Concerns courses and training taken in Quebec.
Chapter 8 : Presents household structure and its development over time.
Chapter 9 : Addresses language on multiple levels : contact language, language spoken in public, language spoken at home, language spoken at work and the respondents' level of knowledge of French and English.
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Chapter 10 : Discusses citizenship and sponsorship.
Chapter 11 : Concerns civic life.
Chapter 12 : Presents issues on human rights and discrimination.
Chapter 13 : Analyzes the current networks of respondents in Quebec.
Chapter 14 : Examines their relations outside Quebec.
Chapter 15 : Asks the respondents questions related to the roots they have put down here, their sense of belonging and how they evaluate their settlement situation in Quebec.
[1] This boom took place across Canada. In Quebec, there were 32% more immigrants admitted in 1989 than in 1988.
[2] 89% of immigrants admitted this year settled in the metropolitan census area of Montreal.
[3] Nevertheless, several longitudinal studies on immigrants exist. The first, which inspired the SNI study, is the Canadian study that followed immigrants in their first three years of life in Canada. See Manpower and Immigration Canada, 1974, Three Years in Canada : First Report of the Longitudinal Survey on the Economic and Social Adaptation of Immigrants. Gilles Deschamps also conducted a longitudinal study of Indo-Chinese refugees in 1982. Étude longitudinale sur l’adaptation socio-économique des réfugiés indochinois au Québec : bilan après un an de séjour, Montréal, Ministère des Communautés culturelles et de l'lmmigration, 63 pp and appendices ; and 1985, Étude longitudinale sur l’adaptation socio-économique des réfugiés indochinois au Québec : la deuxième annexe de séjour, Montréal, Ministère des Communautés culturelles et de l'lmmigration, 124 pp and appendices. Finally, we can also cite the survey Adaptation linguistique des immigrants that conducted two rounds of interviews with different arrival cohorts on linguistic aspects of their integration. See G Veltman and S. Paré, 1993. L'Adaptation linguistique des immigrants de la décennie 1980, Montréal, Ministère des Communautés culturelles et de l'lmmigration, 278 pp and appendices.
[4] This report and the one produced in Round 1 are available on the Web site of the Centre d'études ethniques de I'Université de Montreal (CEETUM) at the following address : (available in French only) and (available in French only).
[5] The age referred to is that declared on the respondents' arrival in Quebec. To ensure consistency with previous analysis, the same age groups were kept : 18-25, 26-40, and aged 41 and over.
[6] In order to ensure consistency here again with previous analysis, we noted the education level respondents declared they possessed at the first interview.
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