Canadian study finds bigger visible minority population means more social interaction
Shannon Proudfoot
Sun
New Canadian research suggests that, contrary to previous thinking, rising diversity doesn’t erode trust and social ties — and in some cases it might enhance them.
The study looks at how diversity and city size affect social capital, a sociological concept that refers to the connections between people and networks — ties that help people fit in and find jobs and places to live.
The findings fly in the face of previous research that suggested social capital declines as multiculturalism and visible minority populations increase, and they spell good news for a nation facing a future of unprecedented diversity, says Ravi Pendakur, an associate professor of public and international affairs at the University of Ottawa and co-author of the study.
“If what they’re arguing is that as diversity goes up, all those things associated with social capital go down, Canada is in trouble because we have no choice but to see greater and greater diversity,” he says. “A lot of the work in the past has really suggested a negative impact on social capital based on minority status. We’re not finding that.”
Last month, Statistics Canada released projections suggesting that by 2031, at least one in four people in this country will have been born elsewhere and nearly one in three people will be visible minorities.
Researchers have mostly focused on diversity and social capital on the United States and concluded that as diversity increases, trust and social connections decline, Pendakur says. But based on his own research, he believes the effects of multiculturalism were masked by the realities of big-city life.
People who live in large cities teeming with strangers are less trusting than those in small towns, he says, and big Canadian cities are where the diversity is. Previous research in the field didn’t separate the city characteristics from the effects of diversity, he says, but when he did so in this study, he found the impact of multiculturalism on social capital is minimal — and sometimes positive.
Pendakur’s study looked at three aspects of social capital: trust, measured by asking people questions such as how likely they think it is that a lost wallet would be returned to them; interaction, or the frequency of contact with family, friends and neighbours; and participation, or membership in organizations and clubs.
He found that those of French, East Asian and Latin American background are least trusting, and people of Southern European, South Asian, Chinese and aboriginal origin are less likely to participate in groups. But overall, the differences were small once he took into account the effects of city size, Pendakur says, and he found that a bigger visible minority population means more interaction among citizens.
The study was released by Metropolis British Columbia, an immigration and diversity research centre.
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