Overcoming origin-based preferences by selecting skilled immigrants? Preferences in immigrants’ national origin and social class in Quebec

ABSTRACT

Although most liberal democracies have abandoned preferences for national origins in immigrant selection policies, large segments of the local populations continue to prefer immigrants that they perceive to be of similar cultural, religious, and ethnic backgrounds as them. What remains unknown is whether governments can count on the promotion of successful economic integration to ensure acceptance of the greater ethnocultural and religious diversity of immigrants that now settles in host-countries through what has been identified as building a middle-class nation. Relying on an original survey experiment of 2400 respondents in Quebec, we compare reactions to immigrants of different professional status and two national origins (France and Algeria) to investigate if certain types of economic immigration can reduce origin-based preferences. Our results show that origin-based preferences shared by majority group members can be attenuated, but not eliminated by selection based on social class. That said, expectations that immigrants will contribute to Quebec's economy translate into greater acceptance of immigrants of all national origins and social classes.

KEYWORDS:

• Public opinion
• immigration
• middle-class
• origin-based preferences
• survey experiment

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In 2020, the economic class of immigrants represented 57.65% of all permanent immigrants admitted that year to Canada. The other classes, namely family reunification, and refugees and humanitarian, represented 26.70 and 15.65% respectively, but are not selected based on the point system (Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada 2021).

2 All respondents were members of BIP Recherche's web panel composed of 39,500 respondents. Response rates are difficult to assess when using online survey because it is unclear whether respondents received the invitation. A total of 15,000 invitations were sent and 4219 invitees clicked on the survey link. Of those, 1819 did not complete the survey either because they did not correspond to our criteria defining majority group Quebecers (639), because their profile in relation to age, region and gender quotas were already met (464) or because they chose not to complete the survey after the consent form (716). Data are weighted for age, gender and the region of residence in Quebec.

3 Respondents were presented with the following statement in French: "Imagine that you are an immigration officer for the Quebec government, within the Ministère de l'Immigration, de la Francisation et de l'Intégration. Your job is to select immigrants who will come to settle permanently in Quebec. You have before you the following application file: [PRESENTATION OF IMMIGRANT PROFILE]

4 Statements were asked in a randomized order.

5 We cannot push further our empirical exploration as to why French computer technicians are most positively evaluated. However, one possibility is that French origin computer technicians present a profile combining the cultural proximity linked to national origin, but also what could be perceived has strong quality education/skills. In contrast, maintenance workers do not possess educational skills and businessmen might not be perceived as possessing higher education or skills, even when originating from France. As for the comparison between the computer technicians from France and Algeria, the education and skills from Algerian technicians may not be perceived as strong and reputable as those possessed by French technicians.