The Initial Destinations and Redistribution of Canada's Major Immigrant Groups: Changes over the Past Two Decades

This study examines changes in the geographic concentration of Canada's major immigrant groups, with respect to their initial destination and subsequent redistribution during the past two decades. At the same time, it examines the role of pre-existing immigrant communities in determining immigrants' locational choices. The results show a large rise in concentration levels at the initial destination among major immigrant groups throughout the 1970s and 1980s; this subsided in the following decade. Redistribution after immigration was generally small-scale, and had inconsistent effects on changing concentration at initial destinations among immigrant groups and across arrival cohorts within an immigrant group. Even for immigrant and refugee groups whose initial settlement was strongly influenced by government intervention, redistribution only partly altered general geographic distribution. Finally, this study finds that the size of the pre-existing immigrant community is not a significant factor in immigrant locational choice when location fixed effects are accounted for.