The Colour of Poverty: A Study of the Poverty of Ethnic and Immigrant Groups in Canada

This article uses a case-study approach in relation to the migration of Indian doctors to the UK in order to illustrate the complexity and multi-levelled nature of explanations for international migration.
It argues that whereas, at the level of discursive consciousness, the movement of Indian doctors to the UK appears an economically driven and shapedphenomenon akin to other examples of highly skilled international migration, when the practical consciousness of participants is investigated through qualitative methods, the migration can also be seen as a cultural and social phenomenon.
Although migrants move to "better themselves", they also make choices based on factors such as the kind of novels they read as children or "taken for granted" familial obligations rooted in the everyday life of their culture.     

John Porter Book Prize Lecture: Bringing the Social Back In—On the Integration of Muslim Immigrants and the Jurisprudence of Muslim Minorities

In much of the academic debate on the integration of Muslims into Western liberal democracies, Islam is often treated as one or the sole independent variable in the lives of Muslims. Offering to view Islam—or the understanding of Islam among Muslims—as the dependent variable, The Muslim Question in Canada discusses the influence of socioeconomic forces in shaping the Muslim immigrants’ opinions, modes of thinking, and even interpretations of their faith. Drawing on this general approach, which is introduced and developed in the book using a variety of both quantitative and qualitative data, this article focuses on a school of thought within the Islamic jurisprudence known as fiqh al‐aqalliyyat al‐Muslema (the jurisprudence of Muslim minorities). The premise of the jurisprudence of Muslim minorities is that the lived realities of Muslims who reside in non‐Muslim countries are so fundamentally different from those of the Muslim‐majority nations that traditional Islamic jurisprudence cannot offer meaningful solutions for their problems. Therefore, there is a need to establish an entirely different jurisprudential approach centered around the lives of the Muslim minorities. The purpose of the bulk of jurisprudential theorization efforts in this line of reasoning is to facilitate the lives of the Muslim minorities; as well, they aim to create a foundation for the moral obligations of Muslims toward non‐Muslims in such environments. I argue that a crucial element that triggers such a development is the existence of a positive relationship between Muslims and non‐Muslims in immigrant‐receiving countries. Souvent au sein des débats sur l'intégration des Musulmans dans des démocraties libérales de l'Ouest, l'Islam est traité comme un ou le seul enjeu dans la vie des fidèles. The Muslim Question in Canada examine l'Islam ou la compréhension de l'Islam chez les Musulmans comme un enjeu dépendent et aborde l'influence des forces socio‐économiques sur les opinons des immigrants musulmans ainsi que sur leurs modes de pensée et même sur la manière dont ils interprètent leur foi. Inspiré par cette approche, que l'on présente et développe dans le livre, et qui se sert de données à la fois quantitatives et qualitatives, cet article se concentre sur une école de pensée à l'intérieur de la jurisprudence islamique, connue sous le nom de fiqh al aqalliyyat al‐Muslema (la jurisprudence des minorités musulmanes). La prémisse de la jurisprudence des minorités musulmanes est que les réalités vécues par les Musulmans qui vivent dans des pays non‐musulmans sont au fond tellement différentes de celles de la majorité musulmane que la jurisprudence traditionnelle ne présente pas de solutions pertinentes pour résoudre leurs problèmes. Ainsi, il faut établir une approche jurisprudentielle totalement différente, axée sur la vie des minorités musulmanes. L'objectif de la plupart des efforts au niveau de la théorisation de la jurisprudence qui adoptent cette vision est de rendre la vie des minorités musulmanes plus facile. Ces efforts tentent aussi de faire en sorte que les Musulmans ressentent une certaine obligation morale envers les non‐Musulmans dans ces environnements. J'avance ici que l'aspect qui déclenche un tel développement est le rapport positif entre les Musulmans et les non‐Musulmans dans les pays qui reçoivent des immigrants.     

The Community Engagement of Immigrants in Host Societies: The Case of Canada

Using the data from the General Social Survey (2003), the community engagement of immigrants in Canada has been examined along 15 different dimensions. The findings indicate that immigrants add to the overall level of community engagement in Canada in the areas of confidence in public institutions ‐‐ such as judiciary, government, police, welfare system, education, and health care ‐‐ and involvement in religious activities. The areas in which immigrants fall behind are those that involve social interactions with the host population (e.g., trust, neighbourliness, social networks, group activities, volunteering, etc.) or engagement with private sector (i.e., confidence in private institutions such as banks and major corporations). Some of these measures of community engagement improve over time, but there is also an alarming trend that some decline with longer stays in Canada. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Immigrants and ‘New Poverty’: The Case of Canada1

Studies of the economic status of recent immigrants to the United States have questioned the generalizability of some earlier findings based on assimilation theory. In Canada, however, little research has been done on this issue, and that has left mixed results. The present study attempts to address the economic performance of immigrants in Canada through an examination of their poverty status. This is particularly important now because, since the late 1980s, many industrial nations including Canada have been subjected to an unexpected surge of poverty known as ‘new poverty.’ The findings indicate that immigrants in Canada are consistently overrepresented among the poor; that their poverty rates are particularly high in larger cities, which have larger concentrations of immigrants; and that among immigrants, the poverty rates are higher for visible minorities, who are mostly recent immigrants. One particularly surprising finding was that the second‐generation immigrants, who were expected to outperform their parents, had higher poverty rates. A series of logistic regression models are developed to shed some light on the possible reasons behind these trends. Of the three sets of potential contributors – human capital, assimilation and structural factors – the first two were found more relevant. The models also revealed that the human capital factors were less rewarding for immigrants than natives.     

The Changing Colour of Poverty in Canada*

À partir des données des recensements canadiens de 1991 et de 1996, nous nous penchons sur la question des immigrants pauvres et à faible revenu, un sujet très peu traité dans les travaux de recherche précédents sur l'immigration. Comparativement aux Canadiens de souche, les immigrants sont constamment surreprésentés dans la classe des pauvres. Cette surreprésentation comporte une orientation ethnique et raciale claire: les immigrants appartenant aux minorités visibles vivant les pires conditions. Les modèles de régression logis‐tique révèlent que, dans leur cas, les chances d'être pauvres sont con‐sidérablement plus élevées même en tenant compte de toutes les autres variables pertinentes. Les taux de pauvreté des différentes générations d'immigrants ne suivent pas un modèle logique; ceux qui ont émigréà l'adolescence vivent dans des conditions anormales de pauvreté extrême. La comparaison entre la situation des immigrants en 1991 et en 1996 révèle que l'investissement en matière de capital humain favorise de moins en moins les immigrants. Using the 1991 and 1996 Canadian census data, the present study addresses the issue of poor or low‐income immigrants, a topic largely overlooked in previous immigration research. The authors found that, compared to native‐born Canadians, immigrants were consistently over‐represented among the poor, and that this over‐representation had a clear ethnic and racial colour, with visible minority immigrants experiencing the most severe conditions. For them, the logistic regression models show, the odds of poverty are noticeably higher, even after controlling for all other relevant variables. The poverty rates of different generations of immigrants also show an unexpected pattern, in which those who have migrated during their adolescent years experience unusually severe poverty conditions. A comparison of the situation in 1991 and 1996 shows that human capital endowments are becoming less rewarding for immigrants.