SocietyAcceptance of Diversity
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[ September 2009 ]
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Putting acceptance of diversity in context
Canada is one of the most multicultural countries in the world, but how deeply do Canadians embrace this diversity? What is the level of acceptance and inclusion among groups? And how do other countries fare in comparison? There are many facets to diversity—including race, religion, culture, language, and sexuality. But this indicator focuses on racial diversity and how citizens in Canada and its peer countries accept racial diversity. The World Values Survey asks survey respondents to identify the group that they would not like to have as a neighbour: One of the options is people of a different race.
How is acceptance of diversity measured?
Acceptance of diversity is measured here as the proportion of respondents in each country who answered “people of a different race” to the following question in The World Values Survey: “On this list are various groups of people. Could you please sort out any that you would not like to have as neighbours.”
The World Values Survey is a project based in Stockholm, Sweden that aims to assess the state of sociocultural, moral, religious and political values of different countries around the world. There have been five waves of surveys from 1981 to 2007. Each country is asked the same questions using a detailed questionnaire in face-to-face interviews.
How racially diverse is Canada?
Data from the latest Canadian census reveal that an estimated 5 million Canadians belong to a visible minority, accounting for 16.2 per cent of Canada’s total population. This is up from 13.4 per cent in 2001 and 11.2 per cent in 1996.1 Between 2001 and 2006, Canada’s visible minority population increased by 27 per cent, five times faster than the growth rate of the overall population.2
Acceptance of diversity in Canada is critical, not only on moral grounds but also to make the most of the skills and qualifications of the country’s diverse population.
Are Canadians more or less accepting of diversity than their peers in other countries?
Canada does well on this indicator, ranking 2nd out of 15 peer countries and earning an “A” grade. (Data are not available for Japan and Norway.) The proportion of Canadians who did not want to live next door to someone from another race is the second lowest among the peer countries—2.5 per cent.
Seven times as many Belgian respondents—more than 16 per cent—stated that they would not like to have a person of a different race living next door to them. There has been widespread discussion on the emergence of institutionalized racism, particularly in Belgium, that is largely attributed to the rise of apparent xenophobia on the political right and some high-profile incidences of violent crime against foreigners.
Which country is the least accepting of diversity?
France is the worst performer on this indicator—the only country to earn a “D” grade. In the 2006 World Values Survey, an astounding 27 per cent of French respondents stated that they would not want to have people of a different race as neighbours. This proportion is much higher than that reported in the earlier World Values Survey—9 per cent in 1999. The increase may be related to the series of riots in 2005 that began in the housing projects of suburban Paris before spreading to other French cities. Violence erupted again two years later.
Has Canada become more accepting of diversity?
Canada is the only peer country to have earned an “A” in each of the three decades for which data are available. Sweden and Australia got “A”s for the 1990s and 2000s, but “B”s in the 1980s. The U.S. got “A”s for the 1990s and 2000s but a “C” in the 1980s.
The worst performer over time has been Belgium—“D”s in all three decades.
Finland’s improvement from a “D” in the 1990s to a “C” in the 2000s does not, on the surface, seem impressive. Its current figure of 12 per cent of Finns stating that they would not want a person of another race as a neighbour is poor relative to most peer countries. Yet this rate is half of what it was in 1990—25 per cent.
Three countries—France, Ireland, and Italy—experienced sharp deteriorations in performance. Ireland dropped from an “A” in the 1990s to a “C” in the 2000s. France fell from an “A” in the 1980s to a “D” in the new millennium. As noted in the section above, France is struggling to deal with violence fueled by racial discrimination and concomitant poverty and exclusion.
Ireland’s economic prosperity in the 1990s and the 2000s attracted large-scale immigration. This transformation led to tensions between Irish residents and immigrant populations. In the 1990s, only 6 per cent of Irish people said they would not want someone of another race as a neighbour. This proportion jumped to 11 per cent in the current decade.
In the 1980s, 7 per cent of Italians said they did not want someone of another race as a neighbour. This doubled to 14 per cent in the current decade. April 2008 saw the election of right-wing Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who ran on a platform promising to crack down on illegal foreigners. In July 2009, the government passed one of the strictest anti-immigration laws on the continent, making illegal immigration a crime punishable with a fine of up to 10,000 euros, allowing illegal immigrants to be detained up to six months before repatriation, and jailing landlords for up to three years for renting to undocumented migrants.2 The bill has provoked heated opposition from human rights organizations, the Vatican, and the United Nations. In defence of the bill, Berlusconi stated that he does not support a multi-ethnic Italy: “The left’s idea is of a multi-ethnic Italy. That’s not our idea, ours is to welcome only those who meet the conditions for political asylum.”3
Use the pull-down menu to compare the change in acceptance of diversity in Canada with that of its peers. (Data were not available for Austria, Finland, and Switzerland in the 1980s and for Japan in the 2000s.)
Do other indicators of Canada’s acceptance of diversity yield the same results?
Crime statistics reveal that racial discrimination motivates some crimes in Canada. According to Statistics Canada’s 2004 General Social Survey, which collected self-reported data on individuals’ perceptions of crime, 3 per cent of all incidents were believed to have been motivated by hate, mostly focusing on race/ethnicity.
Canadian police services reported a rate of hate-motivated incidents of 3.1 per 100,000 people in 2006. Of these, police-reported data reveal that the vast majority of hate crimes4 were motivated by race/ethnicity (61 per cent).
While both police-reported data and self-reported victimization data in the General Social Survey show that the proportion of hate crime is relatively low, these types of offences are troublesome because they not only affect the person directly targeted but also indirectly affect the wider communities.
What’s more, a 2003 survey of 2,000 Canadians revealed that 74 per cent agreed with the following statement: “There is still a lot of racism left in Canada.”5 In the same survey, one in three respondents felt that if two equally qualified people applied for a job, one a Caucasian and one a visible minority, the Caucasian would be favoured. Clearly, discrimination is an ongoing challenge in Canada.
Canada is a nation that celebrates multiculturalism, yet it also wrestles with it. Although cultural diversity is a part of everyday life, many still feel alienated and sense that discrimination exists, even if it cannot be proven.
How does diversity contribute to the Canadian economy?
Canada’s future prosperity depends on its people, including an increasing number of visible minorities. Canada’s visible minority population is projected to increase much faster than the rest of the population.6 At a time when Canada is already facing severe labour shortages in certain provinces, and given the forecast for shrinking labour availability when the baby boomers begin to retire in significant numbers (beginning as early as 2010), it is clear that immigrants will make up an increasing share of Canada’s labour force.
A 2004 study by the Conference Board concluded that visible minorities accounted for over 0.3 per cent per year of growth of potential output and, in turn, of real gross domestic product between 1992 and 2001. In the years ahead, their contribution promises to be at least as important as it already has been. As strong as the contribution of visible minorities is, it could be even stronger if not for the 14.5 per cent wage gap that exists. This gap is persistent and deepening. Evidence suggests that a learning recognition gap—due to widespread failure in Canada to recognize foreign credentials or foreign work experience—explains a portion of the wage gap. Full elimination of this wage gap would benefit not only visible minorities but also the Canadian economy.
Interested in reading more about the contribution of visible minorities to the Canadian economy?
Making a Visible Difference: The Contribution of Visible Minorities to Canadian Economic Growth, Ottawa: The Conference Board of Canada, 2004.
The noted author, Richard Florida, argues that the key to economic growth lies in the ability of a city, region, or country to attract a “creative class” of people and to translate that underlying advantage into creative economic outcomes in the form of new ideas, new high-tech businesses, and regional growth. One important factor in attracting the creative class is diversity—that is, an area’s openness to different kinds of people and ideas.
Find out how Canadian cities rank on diversity:
City Magnets: Benchmarking the Attractiveness of Canada’s CMAs, Ottawa: The Conference Board of Canada, 2007.
Are Canadian organizations committed to diversity?
In 2006, the Conference Board conducted a survey of diversity-related practices and priorities in Canadian private and public sector organizations. The survey looked at the extent to which diversity has become an integral component of the strategic planning and operational functioning of Canadian organizations.
Canadian organizations that participated in the survey stated a strong commitment to diversity, but their performance on diversity-related measures (such as representation rates, integrated strategic plans, and diversity-related investments, activities and initiatives) is mediocre. There is a gap between policy and performance, with many organizations failing to follow through on their stated commitment to diversity with initiatives and practices that foster and sustain diverse and inclusive work environments.
Learn more about diversity in Canadian organizations:
Report on Diversity: Priorities, Practices and Performance in Canadian Organizations, Ottawa: The Conference Board of Canada, 2006.
Business Critical: Maximizing the Talents of Visible Minorities—An Employer’s Guide, Ottawa: The Conference Board of Canada, 2005.
1 Statistics Canada, Canada’s Ethnocultural Mosaic, 2006 Census: Highlights [online, cited August 31, 2009].
2 Bruce Crumley, “Should France Count Its Minority Population?” Time, March 24, 2009, [online, cited August 31, 2009].
3 Reuters, “Italy Approves Anti-Immigration Bill,” July 2, 2009, [online, cited August 31, 2009].
4 EuObserver, “Italy Approves Harsh Anti-Immigration Bill,” May 14, 2009, [online, cited August 31, 2009].
5 Hate crimes refer to criminal offences that are motivated by hate towards an identifiable group. The incident may target race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation or any other similar factor, such as profession or political beliefs.
6 Andrew Parkin and Matthew Mendelsohn, A New Canada: An Identity Shaped by Diversity (Ottawa: Centre for Research and Information on Canada, 2003).
7 Alain Bélanger and Éric Caron-Malenfant, “Ethnocultural Diversity in Canada: Prospects for 2017,” Canadian Social Trends 79 (Ottawa: Statistics Canada, Winter 2005), p. 19.
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