Abstract
Although much research focuses on the economic and linguistic adaptation of immigrants to their new societies, it is rare to find research that studies the religious adaptation of immigrants at a national level. Using longitudinal data among immigrants to Canada in 2001, hypothesized trajectories of immigrant religiosity during initial settlement controlling for a number of individual and contextual level factors are explored. Religious group membership increases a few years after migration and then falls back to earlier levels within 4 years after migration. However, religious participation declines throughout the adaptation process, while the likelihood of religious volunteerism dramatically increases. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of potential explanations for these seemingly contradictory trajectories.
Résumé
Bien que les recherches sur l’adaptation économique et linguistique des immigrants à leur nouvelle société soient nombreuses, le thème de l’adaptation religieuse des immigrants au contexte national reste négligé. Puisant dans des données de l’Enquête longitudinale auprès des immigrants du Canada de 2001, ce travail s’intéresse aux trajectoires religieuses des immigrants au cours de la période d’installation, en contrôlant les facteurs individuels et contextuels. L’appartenance à un groupe religieux augmente dans les années suivant la migration avant de redescendre quatre ans plus tard au niveau initial. La participation religieuse décline tout au long du processus d’adaptation, alors que le volontariat religieux augmente fortement. L’article termine par une brève discussion des facteurs qui pourraient expliquer ces trajectoires à première vue contradictoires.
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Notes
This review of the historical intersection of immigration and religion within Canada is at a surface level and elementary at best. For a more thorough reflection of these topics, consult Kelley and Trebilcock’s The Making of the Mosaic (1998) and Bramadat and Seljak’s edited volumes Religion and Ethnicity in Canada (2005) and Christianity and Ethnicity in Canada (2008).
During his presentation, “Immigrant Religions in New York: A Comparative-Historical Perspective” at the 2007 Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, Jose Cassanova stated this axiom to be true in the United States, but not necessarily the norm in other parts of the world.
Given the nature of the survey, results are generalizable only to legal immigrants to Canada during 2001. This excludes any extension of the results to refugees adjusting their immigration status after arrival to Canada, international students, or temporary workers.
A potential construct validity issue for the dependent variables is the period effect of September 11, 2001 on immigrant religiosity. LSIC respondents were interviewed at the 6-month interval prior to and following this event. A t-test comparing changes in religiosity for those interviewed prior to and post-September 11 does not prove statistically significant.
A quick tabulation indicates that 273 respondents were involved with a religious group in waves 1 and 2 but were no longer involved at wave 3. Restricting the comparison to wave 2, 743 respondents who were involved in a religious group in wave 2 were not in wave 3. Further inspection demonstrates that over 90% of these missing cases for religious group membership in wave 3 remained in the same city of residence. These are certainly unexpected results, especially when contrasted with membership in ethnic organizations at wave 3 where a much lower proportion of respondents are missing compared to ethnic organization involvement for the same individuals in waves 1 and 2.
FSAs have a population ranging from 5,000 to approximately 40,000, with a mean population for the LSIC sample at nearly 32,000. The number of unique FSAs is 990. Using 2001 Census data by neighborhood carries the assumption that neighborhoods did not change considerably in their religious composition from 2001 to 2005.
The categories for religious affiliation in the LSIC and the 2001 Census mirror each other considerably. In the background module of the LSIC, respondents were asked of their religious affiliation and were grouped into the following categories: no religious affiliation, Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Jewish, Muslim, Eastern Religion, and other religion. The 2001 Census also asks religious affiliation but with an even greater number of categories. The LSIC does not inquire of the respondent's religious affiliation in subsequent waves beyond the 6-month interval; therefore, there is an implicit assumption that the immigrant’s religious affiliation does not change. Religious switching is rare but still occurs and could potentially bias religiosity measures. Unlike the census, the LSIC does not break out Sikhism, Hinduism, and Buddhism and instead collapses them together within the category of “Eastern Religions.”
Immigrants do move neighborhoods between survey waves, and these data are available in the LSIC. However, the inclusion of this data presents problems with excessive missing values. Therefore, the analysis operates under the assumption that the ethno-religious context for the respondent’s current residence at time of interview is most salient. Therefore, additional ethno-religious contexts not included in this analysis may be operating.
Models using Statistic Canada’s bootstrap weights were attempted yet did not converge given the high number of control variables within models.
Although the contrasting results for religious participation and volunteerism rely on the questionable third wave (2005) analysis, the removal of this wave still points to the same directionality of results.
Separate analysis by religious group is not offered in this study as smaller sample sizes for particular religious groups biases inferential testing. However, the multiple yet divergent trajectories when such analysis is performed remains similar in directionality to that found in the full sample. The only notable exception is among Protestant and Catholic immigrants whose combined likelihood of religious group membership slightly declines in waves 2 and 3 compared to wave 1.
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Acknowledgments
I am grateful to Sara McLanahan, Robert Wuthnow, and two anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Appreciation is also extended to Statistics Canada and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council for access to pertinent data for this project. Consequently, the views, opinions, and analysis expressed in this paper reflect the researcher and not Statistics Canada or any of the paper’s reviewers. Funding for this project was provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council award number 752-2008-0188 as well as Princeton University’s Canadian Studies Program and Center for the Study of Religion.
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Connor, P. Immigrant Religiosity in Canada: Multiple Trajectories. Int. Migration & Integration 10, 159–175 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-009-0097-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-009-0097-9