Rethinking Social Participation: The Caseof Immigrants in Canada

Philippe Couton & Stéphanie Gaudet

Published online: 8 May 2008# Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2008

Abstract The social engagement of Canada’s immigrants continues to be the subjectof debates. Most studies indicate a lower level of involvement, particularly for recentimmigrants. This article investigates the possible causes of this lower participationby analyzing data from the 1998 General Social Survey (GSS), which providesprecise measures of two different types of social engagement: volunteering andsocial participation. Three results stand out. First, formal volunteering and broadersocial participation do not display the same level of variability across groups.Second, the positive family effect usually observed does not apply to immigrants:the presence of children does not significantly increase their social engagement.Third, there is a strong gender component: whereas Canadian women are more likelyto participate, immigrant women are not. Other factors (age, income, education), onthe other hand, do seem to apply to both groups. We suggest that these resultscontribute to a new explanation of immigrant social engagement: Rather than beingmarked by a general immigration differential, newcomers to Canada seem to be leftout of very specific, gender-influenced modes of participation, specifically, thoserelated to the family, children, and schooling.

Résumé L’engagement social des immigrants demeure un sujet d’actualité auCanada. La plupart des analyses montrent une baisse de l’engagement social,particulièrement chez les récents immigrants. Dans cet article, les auteurs analysentles causes de cette baisse. Ils utilisent les données de l’ESG 1998 sur l’emploi dutemps qui permettent de mesurer deux types d’engagement social: le bénévolat et laparticipation sociale. Trois résultats importants ressortent de cette analyse. Premièr-

Int. Migration & Integration (2008) 9:21–44DOI 10.1007/s12134-008-0046-z

Philippe Couton and Stéphanie Gaudet contributed equally to this article.

P. Couton (*) : S. GaudetDepartment of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Ottawa, 55 Laurier Avenue East,Ottawa, ON, Canada K1N 6N5e-mail: pcouton@uottawa.ca

S. Gaudete-mail: sgaudet@uottawa.ca

ement, l’engagement social formel, tel que le bénévolat, varie différemment del’engagement social informel – la participation sociale. Deuxièmement, le facteur quiinfluence le plus la participation des Canadiens nés au pays ne s’applique pas auximmigrants: la présence d’enfants au sein du ménage n’a pas d’effets positifs surl’engagement social des parents. Finalement, l’analyse selon les rapports sociaux desexe permet de constater une grande disparité entre les groupes de femmes. Tandisque les femmes nées au Canada sont les plus susceptibles de participer, les femmesimmigrantes sont les plus susceptibles d’être retirées des activités d’engagementsocial. D’autres facteurs tels que l’âge, les revenus ou le niveau d’éducation ont lamême influence pour les migrants ou les non migrants. En bref, plutôt que deconstater une baisse généralisée de l’engagement social des immigrants, nous notonsune différenciation selon le genre.

Keywords Social participation . Immigrants . Canada

Mots-clés Participation sociale . Immigrants . Canada

Introduction

With immigration rising to record levels in recent years, better understanding themodes of social engagement of this population (volunteering, community involve-ment, social support between individuals, etc.) is becoming increasingly important.1

All of the actors involved in the field of immigration, from immigrant communitiesthemselves (Tang et al. 2003), to policy makers (SPCO 1989, 2004), key membersof the voluntary sector (ITWP 2004) and academic researchers in Canada andelsewhere (Hopkins 2006; Germain 2004; Jacobs and Tillie 2004; Fennema andTillie 2001; Li 2004; Nee and Sanders 2001; Majka and Mullan 2002) concur thatthis is one of the critical issues facing immigrants in Canada and in other hostsocieties. A growing body of empirical research addresses the issue (Li 2004, 2003;Aizelwood and Pendakur 2005; De Long 2005; Scott et al. 2006). Most evidenceseems to indicate a significantly lower level of engagement on the part of immigrants.Some research even suggests that, as a result, immigration poses a challenge to broadersocietal cohesion (Jansen et al. 2006). As with many other aspects of immigrantsettlement and adaptation, convergence with the native-born population increasesover time, but the social engagement gap never fully closes.

This persisting difference is not surprising. For many recent immigrants socialengagement is understandably not a high priority. Some are even suspicious ofvolunteering as simply free labour, when they find it difficult to secure paid work ata level corresponding to their qualifications (Vatz-Laarousi 2005). Researchers pointout that aggregate levels of immigrant social engagement are in any case not farbelow those of non-immigrants and rise steadily with time spent in Canada (Scott etal. 2006), seemingly confirming that it is simply part of the adjustment process allimmigrants undergo.

1 For the sake of clarity, we use the term “social engagement” to discuss the broader concept, while “socialparticipation” and “volunteering” are reserved for more specific forms, described below.

22 P. Couton, S. Gaudet

What remains unexplained, however, is whether lower social engagement affectsall immigrants more or less equally, and consists indeed in a simple migration effect,or whether it affects particular groups of immigrants differently. To study immigrantsas a single category is not necessarily helpful, especially since their social andeconomic lives are often more affected by life course events, labour marketconditions and demographic dimensions (age and gender, in particular) than non-immigrants. The important question is hence to identify the specific correlates ofthe lower participation of immigrants. If particular groups are affected within theimmigrant population, what are some of the possible causes of this participationdifferential?

This article proposes to answer some of these questions in two different and novelways. First, it seeks to differentiate between what we term social participation andvolunteering. Many of the analyses of social engagement focus on involvement inthe voluntary sector as their main dependent variable. For many groups, includingimmigrants, social engagement may take a broader range of forms than third-sectorvolunteering. It is therefore important to not restrict the analysis of immigrant socialengagement to simply comparing their rate of formal volunteering to that of the restof the population. Second, we seek to better conceptualize social participationtheoretically and empirically by basing our analysis on time-use data, which arerarely used in research on this topic. We use the 1998 GSSS (cycle12) to analysetime given on a free basis to other citizens. This is also a better way to account forthe social engagement of a broad range of populations than traditional surveys thatrely on retrospective questions (“in the past year,” etc.). It allows us to comparestandard measures of volunteering to time-use variables and gain a better under-standing of new practices of social engagement. Thus, this article adds an originalconception of social practices related to social participation and better evidence toanalyse how immigrants compare to the rest of the population.

What is Social Participation?

Social participation, as we define it here, encompasses a number of practices thatincludes voluntary sector activities as well as a range of other forms of interactionwithin the public and private spheres (helping neighbours, getting involved in infor-mal groups, etc.). As such, it is broader in both form and consequence than some of theother types of social engagement often discussed in the literature (social capital, civilsociety participation, volunteering). This is particularly significant for segments of thepopulation whose social engagement may not follow the standard organizationalvolunteering model (which includes immigrants, minorities, women, and others).Voluntary work and time given to others in the private and in the public sphere are vitalsites of social citizenship (what some have described as Tocquevillian “habits of theheart”). They are the spaces where most individuals can be socially included. Theseactivities foster personal and collective identities, can relieve participants fromdiscriminatory social forces, and may encourage individuals to promote social justice(Shah 2007; Wakefield and Poland 2005). Participating in a range of non-state non-market social activities can even be considered a social right since it is an expec-tation of democratic institutions (Marshall 1964).

Rethinking Social Participation: The Case of Immigrants in Canada 23

Social participation is of particular concern in contemporary societies driven bylabour market participation, because social organisation and policy development aredominated by the market. The latest debates on social cohesion (McDaniel 2003)and social capital reveal that social scientists and citizens are chiefly concerned withthe issue of democratic participation and social togetherness. Simply put, scholarsand citizens are concerned with the forms and the strength of social commitment inpost-industrial societies. These societies are typically described as more fragmentedand more individualistic than what seemed to be the norm in postwar North Americaand Western Europe. This fragmentation is thought to be directly related to thedecline of social engagement.

Most of the research on social engagement is influenced by social capital theories,in an effort to understand and estimate the output of participation (Curtis et al. 2001,2003). It is less concerned with uncovering new forms of social participation thanwith attempting to locate the normative aspects of social practices. What creates trustand cohesion? Which political or social practices lead to a greater social output? Arethey the foundation of a good society? By asking these sorts of question, theseapproaches generally do not attempt to understand new forms of social and civicengagement, located at the intersection of the private and the public.

In the United States, the notion of social capital has received increased attention as aresult of the work of Robert Putnam (2000) showing that formal civic engagement hasdeclined. Increasing time spent in the labour market by women and men, suburban-ization, and time devoted to electronic entertainment are some of the obstacles to civicengagement underlined by Putnam. His main objective was to show that Americanswere spending their time in more individualized activities instead of bonding with theirneighbours, colleagues or fellow citizens. In other words, Americans were neglectingthe very foundation of democracy, as famously described by Tocqueville.

A strong criticism of Putnam’s thesis was that he neglected new forms of civicengagement (Portes 1998, Skocpol and Fiorina 1999). For example, the decline inparticipation in traditional organizations such as the Boy Scouts does not necessarilymean a decline in social commitment and political participation in general. It canindicate a growing interest in new practices and the waning appeal of more tradi-tional forms of participation. This argument has been supported by qualitativeresearch on different populations (Ion and Ravon 1998), particularly on youth (Gaudetand Charbonneau 2002; Quéniart and Jacques 2004), women (Rossi 2001), and immi-grant and ethnic groups (Labelle and Rocher 2004; Germain 2004; Hopkins 2006).

Although critics emphasize the importance of understanding informal types ofparticipation, few theoretical frameworks and research designs have emerged as aresponse to this concern. Most of the studies focusing on civic engagement are stillbased on traditional dimensions, which includes organizational membership, timegiven to political or community organizations, volunteering in formal groups, etc.(Curtis et al. 2001; Labelle 1974). A number of these traditional studies alsoreinforce the separation between the public sphere of paid work and the privatesphere of care, help, and support (Neysmith and Reitsma-Street 2005). Often, theyignore contemporary research on women’s social engagement, which shows thatthey give their time in employment related groups and family and friendship net-works (Roos et al. 2006). The literature on social policies and welfare regimeshighlights the importance of caring as a social practice that should be taken into

24 P. Couton, S. Gaudet

account to support equality among citizens and between men and women (Esping-Andersen 1999, Fraser 2005; O’Connor et al. 1999; Haas 2005). The increase inwomen’s labour market participation weakens our social organization based onthe traditional division of labour in which women had the larger share of caringactivities. The adult worker model family that is now assumed to be the norm inmodern states has yet to properly integrate caring activities (Lewis and Giullari2005).

In Canada, some authors such as Paul Kershaw (2005) recommend the developmentof an analytical and political framework that takes into account the balance betweencaring and earning obligations in the definition of citizen’s rights and responsibilitiesin order to enhance equity between men and women. To achieve this, one needs torevisit the traditional boundary between the private and public sphere. In this article,we accordingly define social participation as all the time an individual gives to helpand support people outside his or her household. We focus on activities outside thehousehold because we want to understand how a person interacts with others outsidetheir immediate family. This should capture important gender differences. Research ontime-use data shows that women are still more involved than men in social engage-ment activities as well as in domestic work (Hook 2004; Sayer 2005). In Canada,women’s social participation has not dramatically changed since the 1970s, but in theUS, some have observed a strong decrease of women’s participation in civic life(Andersen et al. 2006).

Many authors underline the importance of revisiting the notion of participation incivil society (Chambers and Kymlicka 2001). Is practicing ethical consumerism partof the public sphere (Stolle et al. 2005)? Is helping a close friend or supporting arelative strictly in the private sphere or should these activities be considered aspractices of citizenship (Pennec 2004)? Should we consider “caring” a form of socialparticipation (Bowden 1997)? Feminist theories underline the fact that help andsupport for siblings should be considered a form of social participation. By givingtheir time to individuals for whom they have a moral responsibility but not a legalone, individuals are not pursuing their personal end and they are indirectlycontributing to the public good. For these reasons, we count as social participationpractices that may otherwise be considered to be part of the domestic sphere such asunpaid babysitting.2

Even if these examples concern people and situations related to the private sphere,they are indicative of how individuals are committed to people beyond theirimmediate family (Wuthnow 1991). These commitments are often of public interest,and are therefore a policy-relevant dimension of social participation. This might beparticularly relevant for immigrants whose public and private lives often occur intwo different cultures. For this group, volunteering and social participation may bevery different phenomena, affected by different variables.

Our operational definition of social participation takes into account thesemultidimensional debates. We define it as time freely devoted to helping and sup-porting individuals, groups, and organizations outside the market and the state.These practices are a direct measure of individual social commitment that go beyond

2 Although we do not include strictly familial activities, including care of spouses and children.

Rethinking Social Participation: The Case of Immigrants in Canada 25

the moral and political implications of social capital and the frequent emphasis onmembership in formal organizations. The goal of our analysis is to grasp differentsocial participation practices, to move beyond the traditional model. Routine, ongoingpractices often matter more than commitment to moral principles or formal member-ship to the building of trust and reciprocity (Jansen et al. 2006). This broader notion ofsocial participation stems from gift-giving theories developed by Mauss and revisitedby Jacques T. Godbout (1992, 2000). Both argued that in contemporary society, giftsof time, presents, and hospitality circulate through social ties. In other words,analysing what circulates helps us to understand social ties by considering all activitiesoutside the market and the state.

The data we use, described in more detail below, allow us to separate and comparesocial participation and volunteering and to assess how they are in turn affected bydifferent variables, particularly immigrant status. What we call “traditional volunteer-ing” is therefore restricted to the usual measure of social engagement: membershipand voluntary participation in formal, third-sector organizations, on a yearly basis.What we call “social participation” is, by contrast, a measure of ongoing communityinvolvement. It covers a much broader range of activities, over a narrower period oftime: one week instead of one year.

Assumptions and Hypotheses

The following analysis is based on two levels of hypotheses. First is the expecteddifference between traditional volunteering and social participation, as discussedabove. This can be expressed as follows:

Hypothesis 1: Both measures of volunteering and social participation are similarlyaffected by the same set of variables, but social participation ismore stable and less sensitive to the usual correlates of volunteering,including immigrant status.

Social participation is a more general measure of connectedness than traditionalvolunteering: it captures ongoing, local, informal forms of engagement, rather thanthe more remote, formal, and sporadic forms of volunteering. We therefore expectsocial participation to be more evenly distributed between both immigrants and non-immigrants, and between other social categories (age, income groups, etc.). Wegenerally expect that immigrants are less likely to participate, as measured by bothtypes of engagement. We do not reliably and systematically include time spent inCanada in our analysis, for the following reason: one of our main objectives is toestablish whether immigrants differ from non-immigrants and whether particulargroups of immigrants (women, parents, etc.) differ from each other. Time spent inCanada is distributed more or less equally among these categories, and should notaffect the second part of the analysis, although it should be kept in mind that someconvergence does occur over time for most immigrants, as other studies haveconfirmed.

Our second set of hypotheses concerns the differential effect of various indepen-dent variables on the volunteering and social participation of immigrants and non-immigrants. These can be grouped into two categories: labour market effect and life

26 P. Couton, S. Gaudet

course effect. These are partly guided by the recent findings of the National Surveyof Giving, Volunteering, and Participating (NSGVP) and other studies discussedabove.

People who volunteer do so mostly because they have been asked to participate,often at work. Individuals with a large and diverse network are more likely to beasked to participate than others. Canadians active in the labour market typically havea denser network than people outside the labour market. This might be an explana-tion for the greater participation of workers in formal, third sector organizations.Besides, many associations and voluntary organizations are workplace related (theUnited Way, work committees for social life, unions, sports teams, etc.). Manyemployers also actively encourage external volunteering and charitable giving.Related to this second hypothesis is the expectation that income is a strongdeterminant of volunteering and social participation. Higher income is usuallyassociated with higher socioeconomic status and a range of social expectations andobligations, including sitting on various boards, joining professional or related non-profit organisations, and so on. We therefore expect that both a person’s mainactivity (whether and how they are involved in the labour market) and their incomehave the impact described below:

Hypothesis 2: Labour force participation has a strong positive impact onvolunteering, a moderate positive impact on social participation,but both effects are considerably weaker for immigrants.

A key element of this group of hypotheses is that immigrants are much morelikely to experience difficult labour market conditions, especially underemployment,unemployment, and low income (Beaujot 2002; Reitz 2001; Couton 2002). Wetherefore expect the volunteering and social participation of immigrants to be lessaffected by labour market variables than non-immigrants: their social participationshould in particular be less directly tied to work, which is likely less sociallyintegrating than for the native-born. As stated previously, we also expect socialparticipation to be less strongly affected by these variables than traditionalvolunteering for both groups.

An important dimension to keep in mind when considering the relationshipbetween work and social engagement is that Canadians are experiencing moreconflicts between their work and family obligations and greater stress related to theseconflicts (Duxburry and Higgins 2002, 2003). Individuals working long hours mayhave less time available for participation. Labour market variables may have acomplex effect on social participation and volunteering, in other words: working isoften a direct cause of social involvement, but demanding schedules and heavyworkloads may conversely be an impediment.

The second group of hypotheses considered here falls under the life coursecategory. Support, participation and volunteering are often related to life events orlife course phases (Gaudet and Reed 2004). It is already well-known that age is avery strong determinant of social engagement. Young to middle-aged adults are inparticular often described as the demographic group most likely to get involved intheir community. According to the National Survey on Participation and Volunteer-ing, conducted in 1998 and 2000, people aged between 35 and 44 years old are morelikely to participate than other age groups. This is likely due to multi-stranded

Rethinking Social Participation: The Case of Immigrants in Canada 27

participation in work-related, parental, and family-oriented social activities. Sincemigration often occurs during this important period (the majority of immigrants arein the 25–44 age group at landing; CIC 2006), immigrants are more likely toexperience life course disruptions that negatively impact their social engagement.This relationship can be expressed by the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 3: Volunteering and social participation peak in early to mid-adulthood, but to a lesser degree for immigrants.

This is in part due to parenthood. In addition to age groups, we therefore expectthat parents are more likely to participate, independently of age. Research hasdemonstrated that living with children aged 6 years and over is one of the mostinfluential correlates of higher social participation. This remains true despite the factthat parents experience important stress related to life-balance issues. Canadians whoparticipate are most likely to do so in sports-related associations. We can thereforesuppose that parents are more likely to be asked to give help and support for thesekinds of activities. We expect that immigrants will also benefit from parental effectson social participation, but to a lesser degree than non-immigrants. It is well-knownthat immigrant women for instance often suffer from multiple forms of discrimina-tion and social isolation. Language, cultural expectations, social and economicdiscrimination may combine to decrease the life course impact on social participa-tion and volunteering. Having children is not only a personal life course event, it isalso a time many adults become aware of the ethical significance of social commit-ment and social responsibility (Gaudet 2005). This may be more difficult to achievefor immigrants confronted with cultural adaptation.

Data and Methods

The data analysed for this paper are drawn from the GSS (cycle 12) carried out in1998 by Statistics Canada. This cycle of the GSS focuses on the time use ofCanadians. A sample of 10,749 respondents in 10 different provinces, aged 15 yearsold and over completed the 12-section questionnaire, with a 77.6% response rate.The main section of cycle 12 consisted in a diary where each respondent describedthe minutes devoted to several activities on the reference day (the day before theinterview, with respondents spread over the course of week)3. The other section usedfor this paper is related to unpaid work and volunteering.

We use two different dependent variables, corresponding to the analyticaldistinction between traditional volunteering and social participation discussed above.The first one is related to activities with a voluntary organization on a yearly basis.The question asked is worth reprinting, to further illustrate our proposed comparison:

E8: The next questions refer to your participation in a variety of unpaidvolunteer activities helping various groups or organizations.

3 Weekly rates should therefore be interpreted with caution: each participant was asked about his or herparticipation on a given day. But since they were spread over the course of a week, we opted to interpretthem as weekly rates.

28 P. Couton, S. Gaudet

In the past 12 months, have you volunteered through a group or organization?

This is therefore a direct measure of participation rates in formal organizationsover the course of a year. It captures all the features of the traditional volunteeringperspective we discuss above: a long time frame (a year), a formal, organizationalfocus, and reliance on recalled information rather than recent activities. The overallrate of traditional volunteering of this sample is 31.5%, comparable to that of manyother studies (Reed and Selbee 2002; Hall et al. 2001, 2006).

The second dependent variable of interest consists of a code of activity systemcreated by Statistics Canada (see Appendix). This variable (VLNTORGN)represents the total duration of time (in minutes) for social support, civic andvoluntary activity on the reference day. Duration of time for the activities listedbelow is included in VLNTORGN (we have removed four of the components of theoriginal variable that reflected strictly domestic activities, e.g. spousal care). Thisvariable, in other words, reflects what we call general social participation because itincludes time devoted to formal social participation (minutes given in anorganization – in the public sphere) and informal participation (minutes mostlyspent in the private sphere among the secondary and primary networks) as opposedto simple volunteering identified above. The activities included in it are described inthe table in Appendix.

We use this variable in two different ways. First, each respondent who answeredspending at least one minute in one of these activities on the reference day wascounted as a participant. In other words, the original continuous time variable wastransformed into a binary yes/no variable. In total, 13.6% of the weighted samplereported spending at least one minute of their time for support, help and volunteeringon the reference day (note that only about 0.1% of respondents reported 1 or 2minutes, with the first significant cluster of responses occurring at 5 minutes, forobvious reasons. We nevertheless preserved the “more than zero” threshold for thesake of simplicity). We also use the original variable (duration in minutes) tocalculate and compare average amount of time spent in social participation activitiesfor a range of groups. This provides additional information about different modes ofsocial participation across selected groups. In sum, we use three different measuresin our analysis:

Traditional volunteering (rates %) Participation (yes/no) during the past year(Question E8)

Dichotomous

Social participation (rates %) At least one minute of participation in severalactivities (see Appendix)

Dichotomous

Social participation (minutes) Average amount of time spent in severalactivities (see Appendix)

Continuous

The results reported below are in the form of descriptive tables and figures,comparing the various participation rates of a number of distinct groups (immigrants,non-immigrants, labour force participants, etc.). As noted, the time-use data alsoallow us to compare an average amount of time devoted to social participation. Thiscombination of descriptive methods is the most effective way to ascertain theparticipation differentials of given groups (rather than measuring the impact ofparticular variables on the participation of individuals). Multivariate models may bedeveloped at a later point to confirm the effect of some of the variables we use. But

Rethinking Social Participation: The Case of Immigrants in Canada 29

the key assumption of our analysis is that major categorical differences shouldemerge both between volunteering and social participation and between immigrantsand non-immigrants. Large differences of this type can only be measured usingclassic comparative procedures (cross-tabulations and comparisons of means), withtheir associated levels of significance (for Chi-square and analysis of variance[ANOVA] tables, respectively). Unless otherwise noted, all observed rates andcomparisons of means are significant at or below the .05 level, for the weightedsample. The large size of the sample and the magnifying effect of the weightingyield high levels of significance, which should therefore be interpreted cautiously.They nevertheless tend to confirm that the results we report here are not the result ofsampling fluctuations.

Overview of Social Participation: Comparing Immigrants and Non-Immigrants

The 1998 GSS confirms that by most measures of social engagement, immigrants doindeed display lower rates. In terms of formal volunteering, for instance (in a groupor organisation), native-born Canadians report a yearly rate of 36% against 26% forimmigrants. This 10-point difference is not unexpected, and concurs with the resultsof other studies and surveys. In terms of social participation, the difference betweennative-born and immigrants is less sharp: 14.5% and 11.7%, respectively. Thisprovides some confirmation of our first hypothesis. The often observed differentialbetween immigrants and non-immigrants is largely attributable to traditionalvolunteering, while their social participation, measured as an actual social practice,is not very different.

In terms of volunteering, to put our baseline result in context, other studies havereported similar aggregate findings, although none has used a more precise measurethan participation over a 12-month period. The 2000 National Survey of Giving andVolunteering for instance reported a 26.7% overall rate of volunteering (see Reedand Selbee 2002; Hall et al. 2001), while the reported rate for immigrants was 21%(Scott et al. 2006). The more recent 2003 GSS reports a very similar difference to the1998 GSS analyzed here, for both immigrants and Canadian-born vs.: About 35% ofthe Canadian-born reported volunteering for groups and organizations, against 29%of immigrants. The results of the 2004 National Survey of Giving and Volunteeringreports a 45% overall rate of volunteering among the Canadian adult population.This increase in the overall volunteering rate is partly due to important methodologicalchanges in the 2004 survey. However, immigrants still reported volunteering at asignificantly lower rate (42%) than non-immigrants (48%) (Hall et al. 2006).

According to the 2002 Ethnic Diversity Survey (EDS), 46% of the populationreported being a member of, or participating in, groups or organizations during thepast year. The formal engagement rate of immigrants in that survey ranges from 34%for recent immigrants to 41% for those who had been in Canada for several decades.It is also clear from the EDS that how immigrants participate differs markedly fromnon-immigrants. Participation in sports-related activities for instance was reported tobe much lower for recent immigrants. Some of the observed differences betweensurveys could reflect an underlying trend, but are also likely caused by differences inquestion wording, survey designs, and response rates. What they all report is a

30 P. Couton, S. Gaudet

significantly lower rate of volunteering for immigrants, further supporting ourresults.

Other results from the 1998 GSS, discussed below, are also broadly consistentwith comparable findings. Women for instance typically participate more, as dorespondents with higher education and income. Also consistent with other surveys isthe fact that Quebec has among the lowest rate of formal volunteering, although inthis survey it is comparable to that of Ontario. The 1998 GSS data are in other wordsbroadly similar to other studies and the difference we find between immigrants andnon-immigrants clearly seems to reflect the underlying social reality.

Social Participation and the Labour Market: Income and Activity Effects

A first approach to help understand the factors that affect the social participation ofimmigrants is to compare the impact of key independent variables on our indepen-dent variables using basic contingency tables. We first compare the effect of incomeon the volunteering and social participation of immigrants and non-immigrants (seeGraph 1). Concurring again with other studies, and in line with our second hypothesis,yearly formal volunteering increases with income both for immigrants and non-immigrants. The difference between the two groups varies across income groups, butno clear pattern emerges: both are similarly positively affected by rising income. Insharp contrast, social participation seems to remain flat for both groups, at most

Graph 1 Volunteering, social participation, and income

Rethinking Social Participation: The Case of Immigrants in Canada 31

income levels. This pattern provides an additional element of explanation and furthersupport of our hypothesis: while traditional yearly volunteering is strongly affected byincome, actual reported social participation (time-use, weekly) is not. Income, in otherwords, does not seem to be the key determinant of social participation measured inthis way, for immigrants and non-immigrants alike.

Equally important is the fact that the social participation of immigrants is verysimilar to that of non-immigrants, and in several income categories even exceeds it(in the important middle-class range of $50–100K for instance). Not only doesincome not affect social participation in general, it also has little differential effecton immigrants. The opposite is true of volunteering, with immigrants reportingconsistently lower levels of involvement. In some important income groups, thedifference between immigrants and non-immigrants reaches 15 points (with thenotable exception of the $50–59K group). In sum, while some immigrants seem tobe left out of at least some volunteering activities in a number of important incomegroups, their social participation in those same groups is actually higher than thatof non-immigrants. But income is only one, indirect measure of labour marketparticipation. If it shows little impact on social participation, what about other labourmarket variables?

Statistics from the National Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating(2006) show that people participating in the labour market volunteer more thanothers in formal organizations. This seems contradictory because one could believethat people with more free time like students, retirees, etc., might participate more intime-giving activities. However, US time use surveys used by Putnam and otherssuggest that when people have more time, they mostly use it for leisure related totechnology (TV, computers, video games). This also seems supported by the NSVGPshowing that the participation rate of retirees in traditional volunteering is lower thanthat of workers.

Our analysis of social participation from the 1998 time use survey partly supportsthis conclusion: 48.8% of Canadians giving at least 1 minute of their time in a weekare involved in paid work as their main activity. However, when breaking down thepopulation of Canadian-born and immigrants, we can observe how their mainactivity in everyday life shapes their social engagement (see Table 1).

The distribution of social participation and volunteering differ markedly overactivity categories. Our results show that while labour force participation does have astrong impact on volunteering, with large differences between immigrants and non-immigrants, it only has a more moderate impact on social participation. Some of thedifferences in volunteering rates are considerably lessened, and even reversed forsome activity categories (students are a striking example). In one particular category,however, the direction of the relationship is maintained, even magnified. Non-immigrants looking after a home and/or children have a significantly higher rate ofsocial participation (19%) than immigrants (11%). This population is mostly madeup of female homemakers (91.3%). The strong participation of Canadian-bornwomen is congruent with the fact that women living with children are more likely toparticipate than the rest of the population. These results indicate that activities in theprivate sphere can have a strong influence on the social sphere. They also tend toindicate that this intersection between the private and the public sphere operatesdifferently for immigrant homemakers. This difference might be explained by the

32 P. Couton, S. Gaudet

fact that immigrant women are more likely to be left out of social participation(because of language or social isolation) or that they may have more time constraintsbecause of their family obligations (children and older parents) and lack of socialsupport (because of the disrupting effect of migration on social networks). Here wecould ask whether family status or the language barrier is the most importantimpediment for immigrant women participation rates. Some of the evidencediscussed below sheds more light on this question.

Secondly, what is striking between the participation rates of the Canadian-bornand immigrants is the role of institutions on immigrants’ participatory practices. Asalready noted, immigrant students have a much higher rate of social participation(14%) than their Canadian-born counterparts (8%). Learning institutions seem to bea place where immigrants have many opportunities to participate. The labour marketalso appears to be an institution that partly supports social participation amongimmigrants, although to a lesser extent. Immigrants active in the labour market(working in a paid work or looking for employment) have rates of participationsomewhat lover than non-immigrants, but the difference is not as great as forvolunteering.

This part of the analysis also supports the fact that the social engagementdifferential is not the result of an overall migration effect. While the volunteeringdifference does seem to be evenly distributed across categories, social participationtells a different story. In particular, immigrant students seem to be very engagedwhile their homemaking mothers seem much more socially isolated. This is furtherconfirmed in what follows.

Life Course and Participation: Age and Family Status

Our first hypothesis in this section concerns the effect of age on social participation.A first direct measure of this effect is obtained by comparing the reported participa-

Table 1 Main activity, participation and volunteering

Social participation and volunteering rates by main activity and place of birth

Main activity Canadian-born Immigrants

Paid work Social Participation 13.1 10.1Volunteering 36.4 26

Looking for employment Social Participation 16.6 13.7Volunteering 30.2 18.3

In school Social Participation 8.5 14.2Volunteering 42.9 32.7

Housework/childcare Social Participation 19.1 11.4Volunteering 37.4 30.4

Retirement Social Participation 19.1 15Volunteering 30.9 24.8

Othera Social Participation 18 15,4Volunteering 26.5 17.7

a «Other» includes persons on parental leave and long term sick leave

Rethinking Social Participation: The Case of Immigrants in Canada 33

tion rates of various age groups. Studies show that volunteering fluctuates across thelife course (Scott et al. 2006). Young to middle adulthood is typically the age ofhighest social engagement, in part because it coincides with peak labour forceparticipation and involvement in child-rearing activities (with schools, sports groups,etc.). Family status in general is one of the factors exerting the strongest influence onparticipation. Being the parent of young children augments the chances that one willbe asked to participate in school boards or sport activities and to give time fortraditional volunteering.

When comparing time devoted for traditional volunteering and time given forsocial participatory practices, striking variations appears (Graph 2). First, the ageeffect on the yearly volunteering of the Canadian born is the expected pattern ofpeaking in adulthood (35–44) followed by a steady decline. However, social par-ticipation practices measured by our time-use data show an inverse trend: a steadyincrease over time. This indicates that traditional measures of engagement do notnecessarily reflect actual participatory practices. It also shows that the two measureswe compare here describe different underlying social processes. Traditional volunteer-ing is strongly and positively associated with income and negatively associated withage, while social participation, as we define it here, shows inverse trends: flat acrossincome groups and positively associated with increasing age groups. It seems that fornative-born Canadians, time-giving on a weekly basis steadily increases through thelife course. Although the typical age of parenthood is not the period of the highest rate

Graph 2 Volunteering, social participation, and age

34 P. Couton, S. Gaudet

of social participation, Graph 2 still shows a significant increase among the 35–44 agegroup.

The pattern is much less marked for immigrants. First, the 35–44 age group is alow point of traditional volunteering for immigrants. This supports part of our life-course hypothesis: immigrants do not seem to benefit as much as non-immigrantsfrom the positive impact of life course events. Immigrants’ highest rate of volunteeringis among the younger age group (confirming the high rate of school-going respon-dents noted above). In this paper also, adulthood seems to be a time of declining orflat rates of engagement. The trend is confirmed when looking at social participation:initial high levels of participation in the younger age group are followed by a declineand stagnation throughout adulthood until a moderate increase in older age. Theseresults are probably strongly influenced by the timing of arrival in Canada, whichwould require further study to ascertain. However, we can say that some specific lifecourse periods clearly affect their social participation in a direction different from thatof non-immigrants. For example, what is typically the peak time of social participationfor non-immigrants, is a low point for immigrants. This scissor effect seems toindicate that the time period of parenthood and labour market involvement has anegative impact on the social participation of immigrants.

Scott et al. (2006) already observed that age is one of the most important factorsaffecting social participation, especially for immigrants. Young immigrants in theirstudy of the NSGVP reported a participation rate nearly half that of young Canadian-born respondents: 18% against 31%. This is no entirely supported in this study. Thegreatest difference in terms of yearly volunteering is not between younger agegroups (15–24, with rates of 36.7% for the Canadian-born and 30.7% for immigrants)but for adults aged 34–45. While the Canadian-born of that age group report thehighest rate of volunteering (44%), immigrants report the lowest, with only 23%involved in the voluntary sector. In terms of social participation, young immigrants inour data conversely reported significantly higher rates of involvement, with a declinein young adulthood followed by a slow increase across the life course (until old age).For non-immigrants, in other words, the transition to adulthood is a period of markedlyincreased social participation and volunteering, while for immigrants, there is asignificant decline in both. Our hypothesis 3 was only partly correct. Not only is thetransition to adulthood indeed not as markedly positive for immigrant volunteering andsocial participation, it is actually a setback. However, the gap between immigrants andnon-immigrants is clearly less pronounced for social participation than for volunteering.

Parents, Women, and Social Participation

To further explore the life course effect on social participation, we look at the impactof the presence of children. Some of these results are described in Graph 3, whichalso summarizes some of the preceding results, and other comparative figures. It isalready well-known that having children is one of the factors directly contributing toincreased social engagement. The family strongly contributes to building social tieswith the broader community (Furstenberg 2005). And indeed, for the overall sample,those with children living at home report a yearly volunteering rate of 35%,significantly higher than the overall rate of 29.2% for respondents with no children

Rethinking Social Participation: The Case of Immigrants in Canada 35

living at home. For immigrants, the presence of children at home has no real effect:parents have a volunteering rate of 26.6%, against 26.4% for non-parents. This palesin comparison to the effect of children on the yearly volunteering of non immigrants,among the highest in the data, at 41.5%. There is apparently little family effect onformal volunteering for immigrants. Even more significant is the fact that the familyeffect is reversed for immigrant women: the rate of formal volunteering for immigrantwomen with children living at home is 23.4%, against 29.9% for immigrant womenwithout children.

In terms of social participation, immigrant women have an already low rate(11.8%), which the presence of children actually decreases (10.8%). This is also insharp contrast to native-born Canadian women, who register one of the highest ratesof the sample, 7 percentage points higher than their immigrant counterparts. Moregenerally, Graph 3 is a useful visual display of the overall contrast betweenimmigrants and non-immigrants across measures of volunteering and socialparticipation: while for the native-born, young adults, women with children, andparents in general display among the highest rates of participation for any groups,the reverse is true for immigrants. The trend is less marked for social participation,but it is nevertheless maintained. Immigrant women with children seem considerablydisadvantaged in terms of social engagement compared to Canadian-born women.Other research confirms this. According to Scott et al. (2006), the 2000 NSGVP,showed no impact of having children on immigrant volunteering.

Graph 3 Volunteering and social participation, parents, women, and other groups

36 P. Couton, S. Gaudet

Impact on Time Spent Participating

Simply determining the proportion of people who devote some of their time to socialparticipation only answers part of the question. How much time is devoted to it isperhaps an even more important dimension of social participation. Research hasalready shown that a small proportion of people often give a disproportionateamount of both time and money to voluntary activities (Reed and Selbee 2002). Asmall number of individuals spending much of their time volunteering andparticipating can equate a large number of people participating minimally, in termsof its social impact.

The time-use data we use here provides us with a direct and very precise measureof the amount of time spent in a number of activities, including social participation.Since we have been analysing differential patterns of volunteering and socialparticipation between various groups, a simple way to determine whether thesepatterns also hold in terms of the amount of time given is to calculate the averageamount of time devoted to social participation for given groups. Note that thismeasure is only available for what we refer to as social participation (weekly, etc.),which is another advantage of this variable over traditional volunteering. It providesa direct and recent measure of actual behaviour, including who participates and howmuch they participate, which would be nearly impossible with a retrospective, 12-month variable.

Graph 4 summarizes these observed patterns. The average amount of time spenton social participation (for those who participate) for the entire sample is about2 hours a week (127 minutes). A first surprising result is that there is little differencebetween immigrants and non-immigrants. Immigrants spend 120 minutes per weekin social participation activities, while Canadian-born respondents spend 128minutes. Whereas a slightly smaller proportion of immigrants participate at all, aswe reported earlier, those who do participate spend about the same amount of timedoing so as non-immigrants. In some cases, they spend significantly more timedoing so. That is the case of the 35–44 age group, whose mean participation isamong the highest of the sample (partly making up for their low participation rate).This is a partial confirmation of one of our hypotheses that the social participationdifferential between immigrants and non-immigrants should be lower than thedifference measured in traditional volunteering. There is little difference in otherwords in how much immigrants participate when they do participate.

Equally surprising is the inverse relationship between participation rates andaverage time devoted to participation for many of the groups under consideration.Men for instance are less likely to participate but devote more time to it on averagethan women. But the largest difference is between parents and non-parents, for bothimmigrants and non-immigrants. While parents are much more likely to participate,they spend a much lower amount of time doing so. This may suggest that parentsengage in social participation in ways that differ from non-parents, perhaps moresporadically. Clearly, though, immigrant women with children remain dispropor-tionately left out of social participation. They have both the lowest incidence ofsocial participation and devote the lowest amount of time to it of any group. Thisfurther supports our findings that adult immigrant women with children seem toexperience the greatest obstacles to social engagement.

Rethinking Social Participation: The Case of Immigrants in Canada 37

Conclusion

These results first confirm that although the rate of volunteering of immigrants isindeed substantially lower than that of native-born Canadians, the differencemeasured in terms of social participation is less substantial. Second, and perhapsmore importantly, this differential in both rates does not appear to be spread evenlyamong all immigrants. Specific groups are disproportionately affected, especiallythose that should see their rate of participation reach their peak (young, workingadults). Parenthood, particularly for immigrant women, does not seem to have thestrong positive effect observed in non-immigrants. This is very clear for traditionalvolunteering, less so for social participation.

We suggest that the observed deficit may therefore be twofold: immigrants seemto be left out of some forms of social engagement related specifically to parentingand more broadly to the life-course, including labour market participation and age.Much of the life-course involvement is often related to the education of children(PTA, school activities, organized sports, etc.), which immigrants may have difficultiesintegrating depending on their age at arrival in the country. The difference in terms ofsocial participation is much lower and would seem to indicate that immigrant parents are

Graph 4 Time spent on social participation, selected groups

38 P. Couton, S. Gaudet

not shut out of all forms of social participation. For women this difference remainshowever very substantial.

Further analysis will need to be conducted on the determinants of thisparticipation among women. Are they at a disadvantage because of the languageor because of the number of children they have? Although we know that the fertilityrate of immigrant women is declining, a multivariate analysis would be necessaryhere to confirm these hypotheses. Other than language and family status, thepossibility exists that the kind of social participation offered to parents is notnecessarily in tune with the cultural habits of immigrant women. For example,coaching sports activities or leading cultural activities might not be accepted in somecultures.

There is evidence that volunteering is experienced differently for someimmigrants. Volunteering for some may be largely an activity of the well-off. Forothers, it may be encouraged or restricted by religion (De Long 2005). Attitudestoward volunteerism may also be influenced by the absence of such a system in thehome country, or the lack of independence of civil society. This may be especiallytrue for immigrant women who have not had any experience with some types ofsocial engagement prior to migration. But volunteering also seems to be mostlyaffected by the time and material constraints experienced by immigrants.

It is already well-known that migration places a higher burden on women than onmen (Man 2004). Women’s social network structures tend to be particularlydisrupted after migration. Networks of support and participation survive migration,and often directly contribute to it, but are frequently transformed and diminished.Multi-generational households, common in many sending countries, for instancetend to be far less common after migration (Salaff and Greve 2004). This frequentlyforces women to scale down their careers, and focus on domestic work. Added to thefact that women are more likely to be heavily deskilled after migration, this creates asituation of vulnerability and isolation (Man 2004).

Another possible aspect that may negatively affect the social participation ofimmigrants is the difficulties many experience upon entering the labour force. Theentry earnings of recent immigrants have been estimated to be 40% below that ofCanadian-born workers in 2000. This gap doubled between 1980 and 2000 (Frenetteand Morissette 2005). Immigrants, in other words, are experiencing extremelyprecarious and worsening conditions upon entering the Canadian labour market.This may be one of the factors negatively affecting their rate of social engagement.Education cannot be blamed for either poor labour market integration or low socialparticipation: immigrants have much higher educational levels on average. Over40% of recent immigrants for instance have post-secondary degrees, compared toabout 20% for the Canadian-born (Frenette and Morissette 2005). Our studyfurthermore seems to indicate that young school-going immigrants have high rates ofsocial participation.

A strong possibility exists, however, that the lower social participation ofimmigrants is partly the result of their geographic location. The vast majority ofimmigrants to Canada reside in three major cities. Other research has alreadyobserved that lower social capital (of which social participation is one aspect) is aresult of city effect: large community size tends to decrease community involvement,group membership, etc. (Aizelwood and Pendakur 2005).

Rethinking Social Participation: The Case of Immigrants in Canada 39

A number of questions remain to be explored. First, it remains to be determinedwhy parents, be they immigrants or native-born, seem to be much more likely toengage in social participation while spending much less time doing so on average.One likely explanation is the work/life balance conflicts. Parenting is a time-consuming activity that, while encouraging social participation, may limit the timeavailable for it, especially if parents are also working. It could also simply be thatparenting encourages social participation, but that many new participants do so onlyoccasionally. A second issue relates to the often discussed notion that modes ofsocial participation have changed. Rather than joining organizations or engaging inlong-term forms of participation, parents may engage in more sporadic, lessdemanding activities. A third important aspect of our research is the fact that there islittle difference between the average amount of time immigrants and native-bornrespondents devote to social participation. This seems to indicate that the differencein the proportion of immigrants engaging in social participation is not due to howthey participate, but is more of an issue of access. Immigrants who do participate doso very similarly to non-immigrants. Further research could determine whether thisis indeed the case.

At the policy level, more analysis is needed to understand why immigrant womenremain left out of social engagement, especially while they are caring for youngchildren. Our results mirror those in the existing literature and confirm theimportance of targeting these women to enhance their access to full, participatorycitizenship. Some authors, for instance, underline the importance of learningcitizenship through informal community activities, especially for women, insteadof promoting formal social integration (Jansen et al. 2006). This informal dimensionof social engagement could be better included both at the policy level and bycommunity organizations.

More broadly, it is important to introduce social participation as a foundation ofcitizenships’ right as important as labour market participation and to integrate socialparticipation measures in policy development (Gaudet 2007). For this type of policyto be effective, however, it must account both for the different types of socialengagement that individuals carry out and for the particular obstacles specific groupsmay face. Immigrants for instance seem to face some barriers to entry. This might beremedied by better information or specific efforts at encouraging immigrants tomake this initial contact with sites of social engagement. Steps can be taken to havebetter indicators of social engagement. These indicators can then be used to bettermeasure how social engagement fluctuates between different life course stages anddifferent communities. Social engagement is not a homogeneous phenomenon, but amultidimensional social process that can be addressed at different levels and usingdifferent policy instruments. Since young immigrant mothers seem to be left out, forinstance, policy developers and community organizers could contribute to specificprograms that focus on this population.

Acknowledgement We would like to thank Jose Lopez for insightful comments and suggestions, and toJean-Philippe Bousquet for assisting with the research. This research was funded by a standard SSHRCgrant (410-2005-1323). The title of the project is: « La participation sociale des Canadiens à traversl’analyse des parcours de vie ». Stéphanie Gaudet is the principal investigator and the co-investigators arePaul Bernard, Susan McDaniel and Martin Cooke.

40 P. Couton, S. Gaudet

Appendix: Social Participation Variables (VLNTORG MinusFour Domestic Variables)

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Philippe Couton is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Ottawa. His areas of interestinclude immigration, immigrant social and political engagement, political sociology, and labour.

Stéphanie Gaudet is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Ottawa. She is currentlyconducting research on social participation and the life course in Canada. Her other interests include thesociology of ethics, the family, and social policy.

44 P. Couton, S. Gaudet