A recent study by Statistics Canada has revealed that fewer recent immigrants in Canada are pursuing Canadian citizenship compared to 20+ years ago.
The study, which looks longitudinally at data from 1996 to 2021, revealed that there was a nearly 30% drop-in citizenship rates among recent immigrants, with most of this reduction occurring in the last 10 years.
Note: The term “immigrants” is used by Statistics Canada to denote those who have received Canadian permanent residence (PR).
What were the findings of this study?
The study found that the rate of citizenship uptake among recent immigrants (those in Canada for 5, 10, or 15 years) had been declining since 1996 (where 75.4% of immigrants pursued citizenship). In 2021, this rate had declined to 45.7% of immigrants—with the greatest reduction in this rate happening between 2016 and 2021.
The study also found some variance in these citizenship uptake rates between different groups of recent immigrants. For example, recent immigrants with a higher income level (between $50,000 – $100,000 CAD) were 14% more likely to take up citizenship than those with lower income (lower than $10,000 CAD). This trend also demonstrated the more that recent immigrants were educated—among those with a high school degree as their highest education level, 30.4% took up citizenship, as compared to 51.8% citizenship uptake among those with a university degree.
