INTERPROVINCIAL MIGRATION OF CANADIAN IMMIGRANTS

Data from the 1981, 1986, 1991, 1996, 2001, and 2006 censuses of Canada offer evidence on the migration experience of earlier immigrant cohorts in the five years prior to the census. These censuses provide direct data on interprovincial flows of immigration cohorts during the 1976 to 2006 period. They also provide indirect evidence for the internal redistribution of those immigrants who arrived in Canada between during the five years prior to each census. Regarding the question of whether immigrants tend to concentrate or disperse during their initial year of residence in Canada, these data provide no systematic evidence of dispersion of immigrants throughout the Canadian provinces. Immigrants move more than the Canada-born population during their first 20 years in Canada and, at the provincial level, they tend to stay in provinces in which there are a higher proportion of their immigrant co-ethnics. Analysis of the migratory behaviour of recent immigrant cohorts provides evidence that there are distinct patterns of higher and lower migration for some ethnic origin groups. Moreover, groups vary in their response to the proportion of foreign-born of the same ethnicity.