The Political Integration of Women Immigrants in Canada: Assessing the Impact of Pre-Migration Experiences with Gender Inequalities

With the change in immigration policies in the 1950s and 1960s and technological changes that made migration around the world easier, migration composition has changed radically in Canada and in most Western democracies. New waves of immigrants are now more diverse than ever in terms of ethnic origin, cultural background and religious beliefs. Furthermore, new waves of immigrants bring a diversity of social, economic and political experiences from their country of origin. Immigrants come from rich and poor countries, from democratic and repressive countries and from agrarian and post-industrial societies. Research has demonstrated the enduring and structuring character of some of these pre-migration experiences for immigrants’ integration in the host society, especially those relating to experience of political repression (Gitelman 1982; Bilodeau 2008; Bilodeau et al 2010). Immigrants also come from countries where gender inequalities and women’s status vary greatly. This study provides a portrait of the political integration of women immigrants and assesses the weight of their pre-migration experiences with gender inequalities in terms of human development. Relying on a pooled sample of the 1993 to 2008 Canadian Election Studies and the 2000 and 2006 New Immigrant Survey conducted in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver this paper examines the political outlooks of women immigrants in terms of political participation, psychological engagement with politics and relationships with political authorities.