Abstract
Owing to persistent low fertility and strong immigration, Canada has seen its population rapidly change in recent decades. Thus, from one census to the next, there has been an increase in the proportion of persons born abroad, persons whose mother tongue is neither English nor French, and persons belonging to visible minority groups as defined by the Employment Equity Act, to cite only a few examples. However, this change is not occurring at the same pace throughout the country: while very rapid in the largest metropolitan areas, especially Toronto, Vancouver, and Montréal where most newcomers settle, it has thus far remained quite modest elsewhere in Canada.
This paper focuses on the methodology of Demosim, Statistics Canada’s microsimulation population projections model, and is an extract of the report entitled Projections of the diversity of the Canadian population, 2006 to 2031. Demosim was designed (catalogue number 91–551).
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Notes
- 1.
This paper is an extract of the report released in 2010 by Statistics Canada entitled Projections of the Diversity of the Canadian Population, 2006 to 2031 (catalogue number 91–551 published by authority of the Minister responsible for Statistics Canada. © Minister of Industry, 2010).
- 2.
On this subject, see Chui et al. (2007).
- 3.
Generation status ranks of the respondent’s generation since the settlement of his or her family (meaning direct ascendants) in Canada. Immigrants are the first generation; the second refers to non immigrants born of at least one foreign-born parent ; the following generations (third or more) refer to non immigrants born of two parents born in Canada.
- 4.
A census metropolitan area (CMA) is an area with a population of at least 100,000, including an urban core with a population of at least 50,000. Canada now has 33 CMAs. They are Canada’s largest metropolitan centres.
- 5.
Except for religious denomination, which was not asked in the 2006 Census. Thus, this variable is projected separately based on the 2001 Census.
- 6.
Data on religious denomination is collected once every ten years in the Canadian censuses. For that reason, religious denomination is projected from 2001 in Demosim.
- 7.
Including the mixed or non-mixed nature of the union. Two types of mixed unions are possible: with a partner whose immigrant status is different and/or with a partner whose Registered Indian status is different. This information is used to assign generation status and Registered Indian status to newborns.
- 8.
- 9.
Statistics Canada’s Modelling Division may also be contacted at microsimulation@statcan.gc.ca
- 10.
Demosim has one module per simulated event.
- 11.
- 12.
This is an indirect method of estimating fertility that considers women living with at least one of their children under one year of age at the time of the census as having given birth during the previous year. Please see Cho et al. (1986), Desplanques (1993) and Bélanger and Gilbert (2003) for a description and discussion of this method.
- 13.
This is basically the same method as was used to develop fertility parameters.
- 14.
The module for mother-to-child transmission of Registered Indian status is largely based on the same principle.
- 15.
- 16.
Li and Lee (2005).
- 17.
This database results from records linkages between the 1991 Census and Canadian Vital Statistics data from 1991 to 2001. On this subject, see Wilkins et al. (2008).
- 18.
This database includes tax data and is linked to a longitudinal database on immigrants.
- 19.
Readers interested in data on the increase in the number of persons reporting no religion, or more generally in the change over time in the numbers for the major religions in Canada, are invited to consult Statistics Canada (2003).
- 20.
The Ethnic Diversity Survey allows us to compare respondents’ religion with that of their mothers when the respondents were under 15 years of age. The results of the EDS must therefore be interpreted as measuring both intergenerational mobility (since respondents are compared with their mothers) and intragenerational mobility (since a change in religion can take place in one’s later years). The age at the time of a change was estimated by means of a cohort-based analysis of data from the 1981 to 2001 censuses, similar to what was used by Guimond (1999) to estimate the ethnic mobility of Aboriginals.
- 21.
It should be noted that in the model, this module is applied only to non-Aboriginal populations, since Aboriginals are not part of the target population of the Ethnic Diversity Survey. By way of compensation, the results of a mother-to-child religion transmission matrix calculated with 2001 Census data are used to assign a religion to Aboriginals who are born in the course of simulation.
- 22.
The modelling of education in Demosim is documented in Spielauer (2009).
- 23.
Unless, of course, the information is imputed into the database.
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Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful to the Department of Canadian Heritage, Human Resources and Skills Development Canada and Citizenship and Immigration Canada for funding of the projections. The authors also wish to thank other members of the Demosim team that contributed to the model development and validation: from Statistics Canada, Patrice Dion (Demography Division), Iván Carrillo-García, Dominic Grenier, Chantal Grondin, Christiane Laperrière and Robert-Charles Titus (Social Survey Methods Division), and Claude Charette and Martin Spielauer (Modelling Division). Also, from the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS), Alain Bélanger and from the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, Éric Guimond.
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Malenfant, É.C., Lebel, A., Martel, L. (2012). Demosim, Statistics Canada’s Microsimulation Model for Projecting Population Diversity. In: Hoque, N., Swanson, D. (eds) Opportunities and Challenges for Applied Demography in the 21st Century. Applied Demography Series, vol 2. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2297-2_20
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