Origin, birthplace, nationality and language of the Canadian people

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1794974814

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-182133

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Origin, birthplace, nationality and language of the Canadian people

Place of publication:: Ottawa

Publisher:: Acland

Year of publication:: 1929

Scope:: 224 S.; Diagramme

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter VI. Origins and intermarriage in the registration area in Canada

Collection:: Economics Books

126 ORIGINS AND INTERMARRIAGE IN THE REGISTRATION AREA The influence of length of residence as indicated by percentage North American born may be illustrated from Table 70. Some 74 p.c. of the married men of Danish exiraction had married outside their own stock, and over 91 p.c. of the Danes in Canada were born on this continent. The proportions on both counts were exceptionally high. The figures for che Swiss were 73 p.c. for intermarriage and 75 p.c. North American born. On the other hand only 23.5 p.c. of the Roumanian men had contracted exogamous marriages, and that group showed the small proportion of 46 p.c. North American born. Less than 38 p.c. of the Belgians were born in Canada and the United States, and they showed the small figure of 28.2 p.c. males marrying with other peoples. From these examples it is obvious that length of residence and intermarriage are related. Yet we have ample evidence that length of residence in itself is by no means adequate to account for the varying proportions. The colour barrier is more important. The data for the Japanese, Indians and Negroes show this fact very clearly. Further, time seems to have little effect on the Hebrew aversion to intermarriage, and as a result that people may also be regarded as permanently unassimilable by marriage with the other peoples of Canada. The Ukrainians, with nearly 55 p.c. North American born, have intermarried to an almost negligible extent. The proportion of North American born is larger than that for any other Slavic people, yet the amount of intermarriage for their men is not appreciably greater than that for the Negroes and Chinese. The percentage of their women intermarrying is also very small. Nor are considerations as to length of residence in themselves adequate to explain the intermingling of the Austrians or Galicians with other stocks. Their men have married into other stocks to an extent only equal to the aboriginal Indians and their women to a smaller extent than the Negroes. Yet over half of both of these groups are North American born. The Poles and Russians are the other two important Slavic peoples in Canada. About the same proportions of these as of the Galicians and Austrians were born on this continent, yet twice the amount of intermarriage has taken place. Further, the Swedes with virtually the same percentage North American born as the four Slavic stocks mentioned, show a proportion married outside their own stock double that of the Poles and Russians and more than four times greater than that for the Austrians and Ukrainians. Such examples could be multiplied. Important as is length of residence, other influences are at work. Causes associated with origin naturally suggest themselves, but other more or less extraneous conditions exist, and attention is next directed to sex distribution. Since :his factor is subject to definite measurement it can be isolated and receive separate treat- ment. Sex Distribution—It has been suggested that sex distribution is something apart from origin, yet that is not strictly accurate. Indeed, in one sense it is primarily a matter of stocks, for, as was pointed out in Chapter III, certain peoples send as emigrants to Canada large proportions of unattached men, while emigration from other parts is composed chiefly of married men with wives and families. In some cases, however, the large surplus of males is due mainly to legal restrictions on immigration, as in the case of the Chinese and Japanese; and it might be argued that Europe furnishes many instances where the proportions of the sexes emigrating are determined by economic and other conditions in the homeland, quite apart from considerations of the stocks. But the principal reason why sex distribution was referred to above as extraneous to origin is that, given different proportions of males and lemales of marriageable age in a population group, the mathematical chance of a man marrying a woman of the same origin is entirely different from that of a woman choosing a ausband of like stock. The men and the women are of the same origin, but the extent of sndogamous marriage is influenced by their relative numbers. The differences in the rates for the two sexes are conditioned by the accident of sex distribution, even though that accident may be remarded as partially attributable to the characteristics of the particular stocks. . By way of illustrating the influences of sex, a few examples may be chosen from the data in Table 70. Nearly seven times as large a proportion of Chinese men as women inter- marry, which is in part due to the fact that there are thirty-three times more adult males than females of that origin in Canada. The Greeks. with a five times greater proportion of

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