AGE DISTRIBUTION OF THE FOREIGN BORN 77 
To what extent differing characteristics are due to differences in age distribution is a 
matter for nice calculation, and can usually be estimated with very considerable accuracy 
when sufficient data are available. The present study is somewhat handicapped in respect. 
of age statisties for the foreign born population. While many types of information are 
available for the population by country of birth, age data have been assembled for the 
different sections of the foreign born population only by three broad classifications, viz, 
Canadian born, British born, and foreign born. That information, however, is exceedingly 
useful when other data are also classified by the same broad nativity groups, and the 
present subsection is devoted to presenting the facts, making certain explanations, and 
suggesting some of the consequences which follow from the various types of age distribution 
in these different sections of the population. 
Age Distribution and Nativity —Table 39 shows the numbers and percentages of each sex 
found in specified age groups for the total population in Canada and the three nativity 
groups which compose it. Charts 19, 20, 21 and 22 (p. 80) present the same data in graphic 
form. 
A glance will reveal great differences as between the first two and last two charts. The 
chart for the total population is a composite diagram of which the other three form the 
component parts, and since our object is the making of an analysis, attention is focussed 
on the latter three. 
Among the Canadian born over 40 p.c. of the population is under 15 years of age. This 
is the first outstanding point of difference when comparison is made between the age dis- 
tribution of the Canadian and either the British or the foreign born. Of the British born 
only 7-74 p.c. of the males and 8-58 p.c. of the females are below the age of 15 years and 
in the foreign born group 9:77 p.c. of the males and 12-99 p.c. of the females. Thus on June 
10, 1921, the Canadian born section of our population had four to five times as large a pro- 
portion of children under the adolescent age:as had either the British or foreign born. 
The figures for 1921, however, rather over-emphasize the difference in age distribution 
for two important reasons, viz., the comparatively small immigration during the last six 
years of the decade 1911-1921, and the fact that children of immigrant parents are added to 
the Canadian born. The two causes undoubtedly result in a higher age distribution among 
the British and foreign born in Canada at the close of the ten-year period than would other- 
wise have obtained. It is worth noting that the figures in themselves do not neces- 
sarily prove an abnormal age distribution among immigrants. There might have been 
nearly as large a proportion of immigrants prior to 1914 under 15 years of age as was found 
in the total population, and a resultant age distribution of the foreign born somewhat 
similar to that in 1921, By 1921 the children of 1914 would have grown to adult manhood 
and womanhood. Their places in the community would have been taken by a new genera- 
tion—not of foreign born but of Canadian born children of immigrant parentage. The pro- 
portion of children in the population group classed as of Canadian birth would thus natur- 
ally appear unduly high and at the same time there would be a gross deficiency in the lower 
age group of the foreign born. Such influences were at work prior to the year 1921, the effect 
being intensified by the comparative cessation of immigration, and the result was that neither 
the age distribution of the Canadian born nor that of the British nor foreign born even 
approximated to that of a normal population. The percentage below 15 years was abnorm- 
ally large in the Canadian group and abnormally small in the other two. The chart for the 
population as a whole more nearly represents the normal distribution, though if even that 
were compared with similar charts for other European countries, marked differences would 
appear, especially in the lower and upper age groups. 
It should also be pointed out that the comparative cessation of immigration and the 
obvious necessity of. classifying all children of immigrants born in Canada as of Canadian 
birth, though the most important, were not the sole causes of the abnormal age distribution 
of the British and foreign born in 1921. The age of incoming immigrant people prior to the 
war is also an imvortant factor. for the age distribution of immigrants is quite different