Most Immigrants To Canada Are Happy To Be Here

Immigrants in Canada are generally happy with life in their new home, with most immigrant groups having higher levels of life satisfaction than their source-country populations. A recent study by Statistics Canada — the Canadian government agency commissioned with producing information to better understand Canada — found that out of 43 immigrant groups, separated by nationality, only three rated themselves as less happy than people in their source countries. The study also compared life satisfaction between recent immigrants to Canada and the Canadian-born population. Comparisons with the Canadian-born population indicate that when socio-demographic, economic, and health factors are considered, few immigrant groups differ significantly from the Canadian-born population in life satisfaction. Research on immigrants’ lives in Canada often focuses on economic factors relating to labour market and financial outcomes. However, given that immigrants frequently cite improvements in quality of life as a motive for moving to Canada, asking them to self-assess their quality of life and comparing those results with results from source-country populations reveals just how much most immigrants to Canada benefit from taking the decision to immigrate. Respondents were asked to rate their life satisfaction on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is “very dissatisfied” and 10 is “very satisfied”. Immigrant groups that reported average results greater than 8.5 included those from Argentina, El Salvador, Italy and Nigeria. Moreover, immigrants in Canada from India, Nigeria, Morocco, South Africa, Bulgaria, Romania, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Ukraine, Iraq and Zimbabwe claimed a far higher level of happiness than respondents from their source countries. http://www.cicnews.com/2014/12/immigrants-canada-happy-124272.html