Continuing its focus on understanding the causes and potential responses to the decline in citizenship uptake, today the Institute for Canadian Citizenship is publishing an in-depth analysis by expert researcher Andrew Griffith of demographic and socioeconomic data from Census 2016 and 2021 of naturalized and non-naturalized immigrants. 

Highlights from the report

1. Citizenship is declining across all major demographic variables

Citizenship rates have declined across all major source countries, education levels, and provinces of residence. Notably, citizenship uptake is lowest among university-educated immigrants, who represent a growing proportion of recent immigrants. Despite higher immigration levels, Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta experienced the largest declines in naturalization.

2. Family class immigrants have the lowest naturalization rates, refugees the highest

Immigrants who arrive under the family category have the lowest naturalization rates in both census periods, but also experienced the largest decline – 17 percent – between the two periods. Naturalization is higher for economic class and refugee immigrants, but these categories also experienced declines of 10 percent and 5 percent respectively across the two periods analyzed.

3. Naturalized citizens generally have higher incomes than non-citizens, non-citizen women lag behind in most labour force measures

Among immigrants with a bachelors degree, median after-tax income of non-citizens is only 43 percent of the median after-tax incomes of citizens across all census periods. The gap in unemployment levels between non-citizen and citizen women increased from less than 1 percent in Census 2016 to 2.3 percent in Census 2021 – a 155 percent increase.

4. Government can act to reverse the trend

Government should expand funding to programs that educate, encourage and prepare immigrants for citizenship, and also adopt a meaningful performance target focused on the naturalization rates of recent immigrants – those who arrived within 5-9 years. It should avoid diminishing the value of citizenship by making it a more visible and celebrated part of the immigration journey.