Institutional Change and Emerging Cohorts of the ‘New’ Immigrant Second Generation: Implications for the Integration of Racial Minorities in Canada

Over the past few decades, institutional change has dramatically altered the reception of new immigrants in Canada, creating new obstacles to their employment and reducing their economic success. But what effect – if any – does institutional change have on the second-generation children of immigrants? Second generation experiences have been examined as indicators of the long-term potential for racial minority integration into Canadian society. However, realistic analysis of minority integration requires consideration of whether institutional change – related to education, labour market, government policies, and globalization – alters the experiences of successive secondgeneration cohorts, as it has for immigrants. This paper proposes an institutional model for minority integration which locates immigrant generational succession as embedded within a changing institutional structure. Current research findings on early family life, educational attainment, and labour market successes of the second generation in Canada are interpreted in light of this model. The interplay between generational succession and effects of institutional change raises significant issues for future research. Institutional Change and Emerging Cohorts of the ‘New’ Immigrant Second Generation: Implications for the Integration of Racial Minorities in Canada Increasingly, successful integration of immigrant groups of non-European origins in Canada involves the experiences of the children of immigrants – the so-called ‘new second generation.’ Persons of non-European origins have been prominent among immigrants to Canada since the policy reforms of the 1960's, creating a new diversity in what had been – apart from aboriginal peoples – an almost entirely European-based population. Now the children of these immigrants are growing in number. By 2001, those born in Canada constituted a substantial part – 30 percent – of the country’s so-called ‘visible minority’ population of 4 million (which in turn comprises about 13.5 percent of the total population of about 30 million) (Statistics Canada 2003). What have been their experiences as they grow up, move through the educational system and enter the labour market? And what do these experiences tell us about the overall integration of racial minority groups in Canadian society? In fact, the experiences of this new second generation may provide a more clear indication of the long-term prospects for integration of racial minorities into society than have the experiences of the immigrants themselves. Immigrants, particularly those of non-European origins, may experience difficulties of adjustment related simply to a ‘negative entry effect’ – arising from initial problems such as lack of proficiency in an official language, or lack of transferability of a foreign-acquired education. Since the children of immigrants, particularly those born in Canada, will be fluent in an official language and educated in Canada, these problems will not affect their progress. Therefore, difficulties experienced by the children of racial minority immigrants might be a truer reflection of longer-term problems in the 2 integration of racial minorities, and in particular the existence of racial discrimination, than any disadvantages experienced by their parents. Persons of the second generation also have a different and more complex relation with the broader Canadian society than do their parents. The native-born second generation may have a greater sense of personal investment in the country, judging their experiences against new and very likely higher standards. This observation was one of the important conclusions of the classic study of racial minority immigrants to Britain by Rex and Tomlinson (1979: 18, 33, 68-9). The immigrant perspective is one of persons whose presence in Canada is the result of choice, and who judge their situation in relation to that choice and their own previous experiences outside Canada. Those who become disillusioned may have preserved the option of return to a known opportunity structure in their country of origin. The secondgeneration perspective is likely to be quite different, shaped from the beginning by Canadian experience. They may expect equality in relation to other native-born Canadians, and may not share their parents’ opportunity structure in the country of origin. However, for the second generation – no less than for immigrants themselves – context matters. Translating current findings on the second generation into implications for the long-term processes of minority integration requires consideration of ways in which generational succession within immigrant communities may be affected by changing institutional contexts in Canadian society. For immigrants, the significance of institutional context – as this varies not only over time but also across societies – has become well recognized (Castles and Miller 2003, Portes and Rumbaut 2001, Massey et al. 1998, Reitz 2003b). To cite one example, the more positive reception of immigrants in Canada compared to the United States is partly a consequence of institutional differences between the two countries (Reitz 1998, 2004). Further, the declining employment situation of newly-arriving immigrants in Canada, and the