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 III. Composition of the population of various stocks in respect of sex, conjugal conditions and age

Collection:: Economics Books

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

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