Origin, birthplace, nationality and language of the Canadian people

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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:: Summary

Collection:: Economics Books

24 SUMMARY ON ORIGIN AND BIRTHPLACE (2) Turning next to the progress of assimilation by intermarriage with the basic stocks of the country, one finds even greater differences between the foreign stocks. While 24.0 p.c. of the married males of North Western European origin and 24.6 p.c. of the females had married into the British and French stocks, only 5.2 p.c. of the men and 2.5 p.c. of the women of South, Eastern and Central European stock had done so. Similar differences appear in the data for the linguistic groups. (See Chart 8.) Generally speaking, those of Scandinavian and Germanic origins showed a relatively large amount of intermarriage with the British and French, while the Slavs and the women of Latin end Greek origin showed very small percentages. The Itahan and Greek males have intermarvied more than the females because of the large surplus of men in the immigration from these countries. A study of intermarriage between the foreign stocks and the English speaking peoples reveals such interesting facts as the following: approximately 43.4 p.c. of the married men of Dutch origin had married wives of British stock, 36.8 p.c. of the Swiss and 34.5 pc. of the Danes. As against these, one finds such strikingly low figures as 3.6 p.c. for the Poles, 3.3 p.c. for the Roumanians, 1.6 pc. for the Hebrews, 1.3 p.c. for the Austrians, 0.7 p.c. for the Ukrainians and 0-5 p.c. for the Galicians. Important as are such differences, the absolute magnitude of the proportions is of as great if not greater significance. Assimilation by intermarriage with the British and French has made some progress among most of the North Western European peoples, but it has scarcely begun with those of the South, Eastern and Central parts of the Continent. (3) Considerations of length of residence in Canada, sex distribution and numerical size of the several groups interfere with the use of the above percentages as an index of assimila- bility. As has been pointed out, they merely measure the amount of assimilation by inter- marriage having already taken place. There appear, however, to be very real differences between the groups in respect to ease of assimilation, quite independent of the three more or less accidental and extraneous factors mentioned above. A multiple correlation was worked out, and the expected amount of intermarriage was ccmputed for the males of nineteen white stocks in terms of (1) length of residence as indicated by percentage of stock North American born, (2) percentage surplus of males (21 years of age and over), and (3) pro- portion which the stock constituted of the total population of Canada. In seven out of nineteen cases, the actual amount of intermarriage up to 1921 exceeded expectation. All seven groups, except the Czechoslovaks, were North Western European peoples. With the exception of the Dutch and Icelanders, those showing percentages less than expectation were all South, Eastern and Central Europeans. Moreover, the differences in agssimilability were of no mean order. Intermarriage for the Swedes and Danes, for example, exceeded expectation by 75 p.c., and that for the Austrians fell short by 42 pe. for the Icelanders 52 p.c. and for the Ukrainians by 61 pe. It is a wide spread from 75 pc. above to 61 p.c. below expectation, and it would be hard to find more conclusive proof that peculiarities of the different stocks are of major importance in the matter of assimilation. It was shown, in particular, that segregation was an important barrier to intermarriage —indeed, the disparity between the figure for the Icelanders and those for the other Scandina- vian peoples is probably due mainly to geographical and occupational segregation. That the recorded intermarriage for the Dutch was slightly below expectation is explained by the segregation of the Mennonites in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and the unusually low figure for the Ukrainians is attributed in part at least to a similar circumstance. Some stocks tend to segregate to a much greater extent than do others, and to that extent they are more difficult to assimilate. Other barriers also were found to exist, but the principal findings of this subsection may be summarized as follows: First, the different stocks differ radically in assimilability by marriage with other stocks in Canada, and secondly, speaking generally, the North Western Europeans are possessed of distinctive characteristics favourable to assimilation by marriage, while the peculiarities of the South, Eastern and Central Europeans and, in particular. their tendency to segregate make assimilation abnormally difficult.

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