Housing Trajectories Across the Urban Hierarchy: Analysis of the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada, 2001–2005

Abstract

Within the Canadian housing market, some immigrants move quickly to quality, affordable housing, whereas others struggle through both systematic and institutional barriers. This article uses Statistics Canada's Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada (LSIC) —capturing the settlement and integration experiences of immigrants from 2001 to 2005—and investigates housing conditions (housing satisfaction, rates of homeownership, crowding, and affordability) over three survey waves across the Canadian urban hierarchy. Descriptive statistics are used to explore the relationship between immigrant admission class, housing conditions, and settlement locations, namely, those arriving in primary settlement locations (Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver) relative to that observed in secondary (census metropolitan areas) and tertiary (census agglomerations) locations. Using overall housing satisfaction as a proxy for the suitability/adequacy of housing to the needs of the immigrants, a logistic regression model is used seeking to understand the factors shaping a satisfied housing experience; the most significant factors include owning one's home, having an excellent or very good level of self-rated health, and not living in crowded conditions. The results of this research are framed as advancing understanding in the Canadian immigrant housing discourse through providing a longitudinal perspective on immigrant housing trajectories, and how these vary across socio-demographic and economic factors.

Keywords::

• Immigrant
• housing trajectory
• homeownership
• crowding
• affordability

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the staff at the McMaster University Statistics Canada Research Data Centre (RDC), particularly James Chowhan and Peter Kitchen, for the many questions and discussions supported over the course of the data analysis. The authors also thank the three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.

Notes

¹ The LSIC does not include individuals who enter Canada as asylees (refugee claimants) and who may be a more vulnerable group in terms of housing as they do not have access to settlement services.

² Reported values conform to Statistics Canada guidelines. To ensure confidentiality and quality of the results, all frequencies were required to be rounded to the nearest 50 and proportions were estimated based on the rounded frequency and reported within one decimal place.

³ All analyses were conducted using SAS 9.2.

⁴ The housing satisfaction variable was only asked in the third wave of the survey, thus did not permit longitudinal analysis.

⁵ We are assuming that homeownership is the ideal and desirable. However, work by Preston et al. (2009) suggests that immigrants may purchase housing that is unaffordable because of a limited supply of rental housing, essentially forcing them into the market.

⁶ When more than 30 per cent of income is spent on housing, consumption of other necessities (food, clothing, etc.) is reduced (Carter et al., 2008).

⁷ Recall that housing satisfaction was only asked in wave 3.

⁸ Redlining refers to mortgage lenders systematically choosing not to provide loans in certain neighbourhoods due to their social or class composition, thus drawing a real and symbolic red line around the neighbourhood on a map (see Hernandez, 2009).