Explaining Immigrant Voting Rates:
The Influence of Source Country Political Culture
Abstract:
Dominant theoretical paradigms in the study of immigrant adaptation and integration tend to
reject cultural difference as a causal variable. This article challenges the neglect of origin
effects where political participation of immigrants is concerned. Statistical studies of
immigrant voting rates identify persistent and unexplained group-level variability. I test for a
link between origin country cultures that are more or less democratic and immigrant voter
turnout. Results indicate that the influence of origin culture on voting is strong among foreignborn citizens, and persists into the second generation. Immigrants’ political practices are
influenced not only by current contexts, but also by group-level cultural differences brought
from abroad, and a consideration of both is necessary for a satisfactory account of integration
processes.
Deanna Pikkov
PhD Candidate
Department of Sociology
University of Toronto
725 Spadina Ave.
Toronto, ON
Canada M5S 2J4
Telephone: 416 769 3323
Email: [email protected]
Paper prepared for presentation at the Immigration, Minorities and Multiculturalism in
Democracies Conference, October 25-27, 2007, Montreal, Quebec.
This research is supported by a fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council of Canada.
DRAFT PAPER – Please do not cite
1
INTRODUCTION
As a result of extended high levels of immigration, the foreign born now comprise
some twenty percent of the Canadian population and close to half of the population of the
country’s largest cities. While the study of immigrant integration has focused primarily on
socio-economic outcomes and accomplishments, these demographic trends have also sparked
an increased interest in political integration. Democratic participation, and voting in particular,
has historically been important to immigrants’ economic prospects, and is among the best
available guarantees against the political exploitation and scapegoating of immigration issues
and communities. In addition, voting is an important measure of active membership and
belonging in national communitites. At a time of vague and diffuse anxiety about cultural
values, electoral participation provides concrete evidence of commitment to a core set of
democratic duties and responsibilities.
Canadian immigrants naturalize at high rates, with 84% of those who have satisfied
residence requirements attaining citizenry (Bloemraad 2006). However recent research in
Canada has flagged low levels of electoral participation among some immigrant groups as a
concern. Much of the variation that is seen is greatly reduced when recency of arrival and
socio-economic differences are taken into account (Banting et al 2007), but between-group
differences remain, and are especially marked in the second generation (Reitz and Banerjee
2007). Recency of arrival cannot explain disparities in voting turnout among the native born
children of immigrants, and explanations have highlighted experiences of racial discrimination
as a possible explanation for electoral disengagement among recently arrived racial minority
groups (Reitz and Banerjee 2007).
2
The paper tests the effects of perceived discrimination and also tests an alternate
hypothesis: that political cultures brought from abroad exert an effect on individual
immigrants, by shaping behaviours such as the propensity to vote in new national and political
settings. Can political histories and cultures explain the association between racial minority
status and low voting? The limitations of racial difference as an explanation are revealed when
we look closely at voting rates. When we differentiate by country of origin rather than by racial
group, we see that some racial minority groups are relatively high voters, and some Europeanorigin groups are not. For example, low voting rates found here among immigrants from China
and ex-Soviet Eastern European countries confirm previous research that sees high levels of
civil and political oppression in countries of origin as predictive of low rates of voting (Bueker
2005, Ramakrishnan 2005).
But source countries differ not just in terms of whether they are democratic or not.
Democratic countries also vary among themselves in terms of electoral institutions and in the
extent to which they reinforce democratic practices and citizen responsibilities. The positive
influence of strong incentives for electoral participation in home countries are seen in elevated
voting rates among immigrants from Italy and the Netherlands. Both countries, uniquely
among the groups separately identified in exploratory analysis, have histories of mandatory
voting, a factor associated with immigrant community political cultures that attach a strong
normative significance to electoral participation (Lapp 1999). Both countries also have
proportional systems of representation, shown in cross-national studies to be associated with
multi-party politics and high electoral turnout (Lijphart 1997).
I build on previous research into the effects of origin effects on voting by estimating the
influence of levels of democratization in origin countries on electoral turnout in Canada.
3
Rather than conceptualizing democracy as simply present or absent, the analysis recognizes a
spectrum of national political cultures more and less supportive of formal democracy. Culture
is conceptualized here as consisting not only of values, schemas, and beliefs, but also of
behavioural capacities and competencies. A culture-as-practice approach sees people as
accessing, and being partially constrained by, available cultural repertoires and strategies (Tilly
1978, Swider 1986, Sewell 1999, Wedeen 2002). The idea that culture is made concrete
through performance endorses objective measures as legitimate objects of scrutiny for those
interested in culture’s influence. Accordingly, political institutions in origin countries are
considered a reflection of political cultures.
Two important dimensions by which democratic electoral institutions vary –
participation and competitiveness – are captured by Vanhanen’s (1990) democratization index,
which provides scores for 147 countries. Estimation of the effects of origin country
democratization on the basis of this index tests the proposition that immigrants develop lasting
political orientations and habits as a result of shared geographic, historical and cultural social
locations during formative years (Mannheim 1952, Jennings and Niemi 1981, Verba,
Schlozman and Brady 1995).
The approach is as follows. First, the most powerful predictors of turnout identified in
existing voting studies are discussed. Next, immigrant and minority voting studies conducted
in Canada and the United States are reviewed. Discrimination’s potential effects on political
participation are considered. Then, a case is made for the role of origin effects. Following this,
data, methods, findings, and conclusions are presented.
4
What predicts voting? Existing Accounts
Voting research reveals a consistent and strong positive relationship between voting and age,
education, and income. These factors have robust effects on many kinds of political
participation, and especially on voting, in quantitative analyses. Education has the strongest
association, with income usually less strongly related. Low income, or poverty, is clearly
influential in discouraging voting. Age shows a strong and slightly curvilinear positive
relationship to voting that is consistent across groups (Leighley, 2001; Rosenstone and Hansen,
1993; Tilley, 2002). Being married is strongly and positively associated with voting among
immigrants (Bueker, 2005). Duration of residence is another important factor.
Voting
increases with length of residency among the foreign born even when controlling for education
and income (Ramakrishnan and Espenshade, 2001).
The usual interpretation of these effects is that as we age and form families we develop
a heightened sense of community and responsibility. In addition, higher levels of education and
longer residence results in increased knowledge of political systems and stronger feelings of
political efficacy, while greater income is thought to increase the stake of voters in the system.
It is also argued that socioeconomic factors influence the accumulation of skills translatable to
political processes (Verba, Schlozman & Brady, 1995). An alternative reading emphasizes the
greater attractiveness of those with greater income to political entrepreneurs and mobilizers.
Until recently, studies of immigrant electoral behavior using Canadian data have been
few,
the
result
of
both
data
limitations
and
a
historical
preoccupation
with
Anglophone/Francophone ethnic divides. Studies that do exist find no substantial differences
in voting rates between Canadian immigrants and non-immigrants in aggregate (Black, 1982),
but there is evidence of variability across ethnicity and nativity groupings (Lapp, 1999; Chui,
5
Curtis & Lambert, 1991; Black, 1987; Wood, 1981). However, these studies suffer, variously
and to different degrees, from a lack of multivariate analysis of findings, samples limited in
size, scope, or representativeness, and crude ancestry distinctions (for example, broad regional
groupings such as European and Asian are used).
Recent research on voting focuses on the lower participation rates of racial minorities
(Banting, Courchene and Seidle 2007, Reitz and Bannerjee 2007). These studies treat voting as
one of a wide range of dependent variables related to belonging and participation, with a
standard set of controls employed across the board. As a result, variations between groups in
characteristics known to heavily influence voting are not adequately controlled. In addition to
this, racial groupings tend to conflate identifications. By mixing together groups with widely
varying social and geographic origins, racial groupings mask the effects of religion, linguistic
difference and congruity, culture and history, and make detection of patterns across groups
difficult (Cornell and Hartmann, 2004). Racial categorizations are useful for generating
statistics pertaining to racial discrimination, but finer categorizations tell us more.
Racial categorizations are dominant among researchers studying electoral participation
in the United States. Research into minority voting rates (not differentiating by immigrant
status) find that Blacks and Whites in the United States have similar rates of political
participation once demographic controls are applied (Wolfinger and Rosenstone, 1980). The
most persistent and well-studied gap in voting behavior in the US among racial groups is
between Latinos and non-Latinos – with the former voting less (Calvo and Rosenstone 1984,
Hero and Campbell 1996). There is some evidence that Asian-Americans are the least likely of
all racial groups to vote (Lien 1998, Ramakrishnan and Espenshade 2001).
6
In attempting to explain these kinds of broad disparities between groups, researchers
have found modest effects for contextual variables such as closeness of electoral races,
eligibility for absentee ballots, restrictive voting registration requirements, state political
cultures, the presence of issues of special interest to immigrants and minorities, and residential
concentrations of immigrants (Ramakrishnan and Espenshade 2001, Ramakrishnan 2005). We
know that group size matters, because it influences mobilization efforts by partisan and
campaign elites (Leighley 2001). The effect on voting of mobilization within communities by
community leaders, political parties, interest groups and candidates is richly attested to in
historical and case-study literature (Carton 1984). Intense mobilization of Cuban Americans
by Republican politicians and party organizations is referenced in explaining that group’s very
high voting rates in the US (Bueker 2005). However statistical analyses still show substantial
disparities between groups, even taking all of this into account. Statistically unexplained
variability has traditionally been attributed to unmeasured factors, and for the last several
decades, discrimination is most likely to be singled out as a possible explanation.
The role that discrimination or exclusion plays in these disparities is often unspecified.
In the context of political participation, perceptions of discriminatory treatment can exert
effects through contradictory paths or mechanisms.
While perceived discrimination may
inspire alienation and non-participation or ‘exit’, it also has a strong tendency to provoke
‘voice’ (Hirschman, 1970). Examples of discrimination inspiring voice historically include the
response to the 1924 immigration quotas in the US designed to limit immigration of Southern
and Eastern Europeans (and stop Asian immigration), which referred explicitly to the racial
inferiority of all of these groups. While Asian-Americans were denied the vote until much
later, this legislation inspired organization, mobilization, naturalization and voting among the
7
maligned European groups (Gerstle and Mollenkopf, 2001). More recently, nativist campaigns
in California in the mid 1990s are found to have stimulated voting among Mexicans in that
state (Ramakrishnan and Espenshade, 2001; Ramakrishnan, 2005). In France, an enormous
increase in voter registration occurred in 2007 among French Muslims provoked by the
inflammatory rhetoric of then-presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy. If we look at voting
trends among racial minorities in the US, with Asians voting least, Hispanics in the middle and
Blacks voting most, it is difficult to construct a coherent explanation based on the idea that
discrimination inhibits voting. In fact, it appears that the opposite may be true. Clearly the
relationship between discrimination and political participation is not simple or direct one, and
the effect of discrimination is conditioned by many factors.
While discrimination is currently popular in speculating about the source of
unexplained variation among groups in integration outcomes, cultural difference provides
another explanatory option. The comparative study of racial and ethnic relations attributes
integration outcomes in part to such factors as whether initial contact between groups is
voluntary or coerced (Lieberson 1961), on the perceived legitimacy of economic and political
systems among minorities, and on the related question of the degree of cultural congruence
between groups (Schermerhorn 1970). Long-term continuities in occupational profiles and
political allegiances along ethnic lines have been observed (Glazer and Moynihan 1970).
However such factors receive relatively little attention in the contemporary study of immigrant
integration.
On a theoretical level, the dominant assumption within immigration theory today is that
economic integration of immigrants and minorities into the core mainstream economy is the
key to all other integration processes (Shibutani and Kwan 1965, Alba and Nee 1997, 2005).
8
This paradigm has had the effect of relegating other dimensions of integration to the
background. And a critique of essentializing cultural explanations has forcefully argued that
cultural difference is itself largely determined by past economic relations (Wilson 1987,
Steinberg 1989).
For these and other reasons, cultural difference has been neglected in
integration theory. The statistical study of immigrant integration has remained largely closed
off from the insights generated theoretically by the cultural turn – structures are assumed to
operate uninfluenced by the idioms, discourses, value orientations, habitual practices and
cultural capacities of the participants involved, or at best it is only the cultural characteristics of
the dominant community that are taken to be influential (Hein 2006).
However, recent studies of political integration of immigrants have challenged this
neglect (Hein 2006). Transnational activities and mobilization around issues related to origin
countries politics provide evidence that political histories and commitments brought from
source countries can continue to influence behavior within new social contexts.
Group-specific political cultures may facilitate or inhibit political participation within
democracies, an effect described as ‘political transferability’ (Black, 1987). Historical accounts
provide evidence of this from previous eras. For instance, the taste for political competition
and activism among the Irish, developed in opposition to the English in Ireland, put this group
in a good position to exploit political opportunities provided by explosive urban growth and
fragmented power within city governments in the United States in the mid to late 19th century
(LeMay, 2004; Barone, 2001). In contrast, post -1880s immigrants from Eastern and Southern
Europe, the bulk of whom were politically inexperienced and hoped to return soon to source
countries, remained politically unengaged despite the efforts of small numbers of radical Finns
and Russian Jews among them (Portes and Rumbaut 1996: 96-100). That such orientations can
9
be overcome is shown by the fact that later on, these same ‘apolitical’ groups provided the base
for Democratic dominance of US politics (and strong support for the redistributive politics of
the post-WWII era) in that country. The contribution of immigrants to radical political parties
and unions in Canada historically is well-documented (Avery, 1979).
In the 20th century, it was the intense political engagement of Cuban refugees in the US
that inspired the first large-scale statistical study of the relationship between previous political
experience and political participation among selected groups, with refugee status predicting
naturalization (Portes and Mozo, 1985). In research that looks specifically at voting,
operationalization of political experience has been limited to testing for the effect of coming
from a repressive or communist regime. Ramakrishnan and Espenshade (2001) found such
experience to have inconsistent effects, with experience of communist regime in the case of the
Cubans increasing electoral turnout, while it otherwise lowered voting rates. Bueker (2005)
explains the anomalous voting behaviour of the Cubans as the result of the generous welcome
granted by the US government to early Cuban refugees, along with the elite composition of
early flows. The Cubans’ political activism might be described as a ‘political refugee effect’,
where experience of repressive regimes is in some cases consistent with increased motivation
to participate in democratic politics. In general though, Bueker finds a strong negative effect
for absence of democratic experience using a dummy variable based on Freedom House
rankings.
This paper builds on these findings, but utilizes a more expansive view of political and
historical legacies to ask whether the political cultures within countries of immigrant origin
exert an effect on individual immigrants, by shaping behaviours such as the tendency to vote in
new national and political settings.
10
DATA AND DESIGN
The Ethnic Diversity Survey (EDS), conducted jointly by Statistics Canada and the
Department of Canadian Heritage in 2002, employs a sampling frame created from the list of
people who had completed the long-form questionnaire (2B) of the 2001 Canadian Census,
distributed to one out of five households in Canada. Responses to questions on nativity,
ethnicity and nativity of parents were used to select a random sample to represent the target
population. The sample was designed to contain adequate numbers of individuals from nonCanadian, non-British and non-French origin groups and over-sampled this group so that they
represented two-thirds of the sample of 42,476, with a response rate of 75.6%1. The EDS
overcomes previous data limitations by asking about place of birth and minority membership
and provides information about many kinds of civic participation, including voting. It also asks
about experiences of discrimination. The over-sampling of minority ethnic groups and the
question about birth-place of both respondent and respondent’s parents provides the
opportunity to differentiate large numbers of first and second generation immigrants finely by
origin for the first time in a multivariate national-level analysis of voting turnout in Canada.
I employ a series of logistic regressions. In the first series I estimate immigrants’
propensity to vote relative to native-born respondents of native-born parents (the third plus
generation) (N=19,412). The third plus generation is designated as the reference group and
1
The EDS represents over 23 million people in the Canadian population. Of these, 57,242
persons were selected, and 42,476 respondents participated, for a total response rate of 75.6%,
with first generations having a response rate of 73%, while second and above generations
averaged 77% response. The average length of an EDS interview was 35-45 minutes, and
interviews were conducted in English, French, Mandarin, Cantonese, Italian, Punjabi,
Portuguese, Vietnamese and Spanish. The full sample is used, as the Public Use Micro File
provides only two highly aggregated categories for year of arrival, fails to provide nativity data
on parents (providing only ethnic ancestry), and does not provide enough detail in place-ofbirth data for the first generation.
11
benchmark in order to explore patterns of variation across origin country groups. I use 16
source country dummy variables to see whether the patterns of variation appear consistent with
the hypothesis of political cultural continuities2. In the second series of regressions I drop the
source-country dummies and estimate voting rates for all immigrants, introducing the origin
country democratization variable to investigate its effect on racial minority and non-minority
immigrants. The final set of analyses looks only at the second generation aged 20 to 35 (N=
1802) with both parents from the same origin country, to see whether origin country political
culture of parents continues to exert an influence among immigrant offspring. Only young
adults are sampled in order to equalize as far as possible the dramatic differences in age
structure of the second generation white and racial minority groups. Bootstrap weighting is
used.
Dependent Variable
The question used to construct the dependent variable asks: “Did you vote in the last federal
election?” and was asked of citizens aged 18 and over. My sample is limited to citizens aged
20 and over, who would all have been 18 years old and therefore eligible to vote at the time of
the election in question. While voting is often over-reported on surveys, and no independent
assessment of this is possible in this case, a false report of voting may reasonably be thought to
indicate an intention to vote or recognition of the importance of voting which makes the
inclusion of ‘false positives’ within the ‘yes’ category acceptable.
The EDS reports that equal numbers of immigrants and non-immigrants voted in the
previous federal election. Is this a reliable estimate of voting? The oversampling of ethnic
minorities in the EDS provides an advantage with respect to estimating questions related to
2
See Appendix B for the contribution of each group to the foreign-born population in Canada, its contribution to
immigration in 2004, and Ns.
12
immigrants, and it is noteworthy that data generated by the 2004 Canadian Election Study
(CES) shows parity between immigrant and native-born voters, just as the EDS does
(Henderson, 2005)3.
Independent Variables
The democratization index consists of the scores given 147 countries in 1988 by Vanhanen
(1990), with values ranging from 0 to 464. Based on Robert Dahl’s definition of healthy
democracies, Vanhanen’s scores encompass Dahl’s dual criteria of inclusion and contestation.
The index is a product of: 1) the percent of the total population that votes and 2) the degree of
competitiveness in the electoral process, measured by the percentage of the vote received by
minority parties. A potential distortion results from the tendency for multiparty political
systems to award a larger vote share to smaller parties than two-party systems do, giving
multiparty systems a systemic boost in competitiveness scores. However, since multiparty
systems are associated with greater participation, a bias in favor of such systems is considered
acceptable.
A one-time measure, given historical change in political systems over time, is clearly
less than ideal. The snapshot of political culture employed here with the democratization index
assesses the situation in 1988 – before the transitions of East European and South American
countries to democracy. This means that recent immigrants from Russia, for instance, will be
coded as having a democratization index of 0 when in fact they have some experience of
3
This contrasts with two other recent surveys in Canada that ask about voting: the 2000 National Survey of
Giving, Volunteering, and Participating (NSGVP) showed self-reported immigrant voting rates in the previous
federal election 12% lower than the native born, and the 2003 General Social Survey (GSS) Cycle 17: Social
Engagement, reported immigrant voting rates as 22% lower.
4
See Appendix C.
13
democracy. However, this is less problematic that it appears, given that the argument is not that
immigrants will vote in a way that mirrors exactly the electoral or political experience they first
had as teenagers or adults. Rather the measure is meant as a proxy for source country political
cultures that are more or less supportive of democratic behaviors such as voting. The recency
and the fragility of political change in many countries means that the 1988 variable, capturing
the long period of cold-war stability of state forms, is more appropriate to capture political
cultures, which tend to change slowly. In other words, the relative political stability globally
from the end of the second world war until the breakup of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s
makes the 1988 index an appropriate one.
The construction of control variables is detailed in Appendix A. The table showing
mean values of variables across generational groups will be made available at the presentation,
as RDC disclosure permission had not been granted at the time of paper submission. While
variation inflation factors are all within acceptable ranges, the correlation coefficients for
democratization, minority status and residence of 20 years or less are all high.
FINDINGS
Figure 1 graphs the average differences in odds of voting from the reference group (signified
by 1 on the horizontal axis)5 among origin countries selected for analysis. While racial
minority groups, on average, vote less, there is no entirely consistent story here on a
white/racial minority basis when we compare the results in the top half of the graph, showing
non-European origin groups, with the results for European origin groups on the bottom. And
there is definitely evidence of an influence of political histories. Among the racial minority
groups, democratic histories in origin countries appears to predict relatively high voting rates
in a number of cases (the Caribbean countries and India), whereas lack of a long history of
5
See Appendix D for the regression results on which the graph is based.
14
democratic experience and traditions in the ex-Soviet countries is associated with relatively
low voting rates. In fact, in the ex-Soviet countries, we have a battling of effects. In separate
analysis, it was found that earlier arriving political refugees had extremely high voting rates,
while those arriving since approximately 1980 have very low rates, equal to China’s.
Among the Western European groups, as explained earlier, immigrants from countries with
proportional systems of representation and very high levels of turnout (Italy and the
Netherlands) show extremely high voting rates.
Germany, with its Mixed Member
Proportional electoral system shows high rates as well, whereas the First Past the Post systems
of the UK and the US are associated with participation levels at a roughly equal level to those
found among people coming from the Commonwealth countries of India, Jamaica, and
Trinidad and Tobago.
15
Table 1, in which the country dummies have been dropped and the democratization
variable is introduced, examines the sources of racial difference in voting rates. Again, the
third-plus generation is used as the reference group. Model 1 shows that all immigrants are not
significantly different from the reference group in propensity to vote. However, dramatic
differences appear when racial difference is specified in Model 2, with white immigrants
significantly more likely to vote, and racial minority immigrants much less likely to do so.
Table 1. Logistic regression estimates of voting: White and racial minority foreign-born citizens compared to third+ generation
N=19,412
Model 1
Model 2
Model 3
Model 4
Model 5
ß
ß
ß
ß
ß
Constant
1.459 ****
All Immigrants
Model 6
ß
1.459 ****
-2.486 ****
-2.401 ****
-2.941 ****
-2.733 ****
0.312 ****
-0.753 ****
(rg)
-0.157 **
-0.368 ****
(rg)
0.009 (ns)
-0.143 (ns)
(rg)
-0.064 (ns)
-0.145 (ns)
(rg)
0.052 (ns)
-0.02 (ns)
(rg)
0.053 (ns)
(rg)
0.064 (ns)
(rg)
0.056 (ns)
(rg)
0.065 (ns)
(rg)
0.078 ****
-0.0003 **
0.076 ****
-0.0003 **
0.076 ****
-0.0003 **
0.076 ****
-0.0003 **
0.114 ****
0.114 ****
0.116 ****
0.115 ****
-0.269 ***
(rg)
-0.249 ***
(rg)
-0.262 ***
(rg)
-0.247 ***
(rg)
-0.448 ****
(rg)
-0.456 ****
(rg)
-0.451 ****
(rg)
-0.456 ****
(rg)
-0.039 (ns)
Immigrants by racial minority status
Not racial minority immigrant
Racial minority immigrant
Third plus generation
Perceived Discrimination
Sometimes or often
Rarely or never
Age
Age2
Years of Education
Poverty
Low income
Not low income
Marital status
Single - never married
Married, cohabiting, divorced or widowed
Length of Residence
20 years or less
More than 20 years
Political Culture
Democratization in country of birth
*=p<.1
**=p<.05 ***=p<.01 ****=p<.001
-0.66 ****
(rg)
-0.567 ****
(rg)
0.017 ****
0.012 ****
Source: Ethnic Diversity Survey 2002
However, when controls for demographic and socioeconomic variables are added in
Model 3, both immigrant groups are significantly less likely to vote than the reference group.
Although the racial difference is reduced, it remains, with racial minority immigrants less
likely to vote than European-origin immigrants, and these differences remain statistically
16
significant. Models 4 and 5 test the effects of residence of 20 years or less and of political
culture. These two variables are highly correlated, and the inclusion of either one has the
power to fully account for and explain the variation from the mainstream of both white and
racial minority immigrants, reducing these effects to nonsignificance in both models. Entered
together in the final model, both political culture and resident effects are slightly reduced in
size, but remain strong. We can translate the effect of the coefficient for political culture as
follows: for every 10 points rise in the democratization index score of a source country, there is
approximately a 10% increase in the odds of voting. With democratization scores ranging from
0 to 466, this translates into a substantial positive impact as scores climb.
It is important to recognize that the estimated effect of political culture in the
final model of Table 1 illustrates the effect that exists assuming a long period of residence, and
removing the enormous estimated effects of age – on the untested assumption that the effects
of age and residence will be stable across generation and cohorts. As a result, the average
effect of group political culture on the tendency to vote is shown here at its weakest. This is an
appropriately stringent test of the independent effect of the variable, but seriously
underestimates its effects on the average immigrant. After 5 or 10 or 15 years in the country,
among relatively young individuals, the average effect would be much stronger. It is important
to highlight this in order to understand the apparent persistence intergenerationally of these
effects, which are shown in the final set of analyses. People do not wait until the end of their
lives, or until the attainment of long residence in the country of origin, to have and raise
children. Family socialization occurs when the effects of political culture brought from abroad
are still, on average, much stronger than the estimates obtained from Table 1 suggest.
6
See Appendix C for democratization scores for individual countries.
17
The analyses shown in Table 2 estimate the effect of parents’ source country political
cultures on their children.
Table 2. Logistic regression estimates of voting, citizens with two foreign-born parents from same country, aged 20-35 years
N=1802
Model 1
Model 2
Model 3
Model 4
Model 5
Model 6
ß
ß
ß
ß
ß
ß
Model 6
ß
Constant
-3.865 ****
0.357 **
-3.874 ****
0.016 ****
0.013 ***
-3.313 ****
-3.512 ****
-3.816 ****
-3.313 ****
Political Culture
Democratization in parents'
country of birth
0.013 *
0.012 *
-0.057 (ns)
(rg)
0.011 (ns)
(rg)
0.012 **
Minority status
-0.314 **
(rg)
Racial minority
Not racial minority
Perceived Discrimination
-0.505 **
(rg)
Sometimes or often
Rarely or never
-0.411 *
(rg)
-0.409 *
(rg)
Age
0.088 ****
0.087 ****
0.095 ****
0.087 ****
0.089 ****
0.089 ****
Years of Education
0.135 ****
0.13 ****
0.126 ****
0.136 ****
0.137 ****
0.137 ****
Poverty
Low income
Not low income
-0.619 **
(rg)
-0.637 **
(rg)
-0.628 **
(rg)
-0.62 **
-0.627 **
(rg)
-0.609 **
(rg)
-0.027 (ns)
(rg)
-0.027 (ns)
(rg)
Marital status
Single
Married, cohabiting, widowed or divorced
*=p<.1
-0.035 (ns)
(rg)
-0.05 (ns)
(rg)
-0.061 (ns)
(rg)
-0.034 (ns)
(rg)
**=p<.05 ***=p<.01 ****=p<.001
When parents’ political culture, minority status and perceived discrimination are entered
separately in the analyses (with controls) in models 2, 3, and 4, each show statistically
significant effects. However Model 5 tells us that political minority status has a spurious
relationship to voting, since the addition of political culture reduces it to non-significance.
However the discrimination variable remains significant when it is added in Model 6.
Removing minority status for the sake of parsimony in Model 7 provides the best final model.
Perceptions of discrimination are negatively associated with voting, and parents’ political
culture continues to exert an effect on the voting behavior of young adult children of
immigrants.
DISCUSSION
18
Origin country democratization proves a powerful predictor of turnout among the
foreign born first generation. Specifically, a lack of pre-migration democratic traditions and
experiences in source countries is associated with low turnout among these groups. There is a
tendency to downplay findings concerning immigrants on the grounds that variation will
disappear in the second generation. Where voting is concerned, the assumption of a speedy
decline in origin effects does not appear to be well founded. Among the young adult children
of immigrants, aged 20 to 35, political culture tied to parents’ origin country continues to have
a robust effect. Perceived discrimination is also found to be associated with depressed voting
rates in the second generation, but does not affect voting rates among the foreign-born. In
combination with length of residence in the first generation, and with discrimination in the
second generation, political culture explains the negative relationship between voting and
racial minority status.
The point in establishing the correlation between pre-migration political histories
within countries of origin and the current practices of immigrants is not to have explained the
ultimate genesis of these cultural differences, which clearly has not been attempted here.
Rather it is to show as decisively as possible that current institutional contexts are not the only
thing we need to consider if we want an adequate understanding of immigrants’ behavior.
The implications of these findings theoretically are to remind us that immigrants’ behaviour is
a product not only of the social forces within host societies, but also of the orientations and
resources of immigrating groups themselves (Schermerhorn 1978, Bourhis 1997, Portes 1995).
The reaction against simplistic and untestable cultural explanations conceptualized within a
Parsonian framework, and the conviction that cultural difference was for the most part
symptomatic of past and present economic relations contributed to a resolute rejection of
19
culture as an explanatory variable in the field of ethnic and race relations. The evidence here is
that blindness to cultural difference limits us substantially in our attempts to understand the
integration of immigrants within their adopted countries.
A rich literature theorizes and describes how contexts of reception, public institutions
and state incorporation policies influence integration outcomes. The research undertaken here
is meant as a compliment to this work, by emphasizing the concurrent influence of distinctive
immigrant group cultures. This paper describes how cultural difference affects behavior in one
particular setting. Cross-national comparisons of immigrant voting levels, differentiated by
country of origin, would provide important information about the effect of institutional
contexts relative to those of cultural continuities.
Political nonparticipation among immigrants and their children occurs in North
America within the context of declining electoral turnout overall, especially among young
people. Cultural orientations exert their influence on immigrants’ behaviors in a situation
where incentives for participation appear to be exceedingly weak for new entrants. If the
‘habit’ of voting is to be encouraged, if our democracies are to be revitalized and
constructively challenged by newcomers, and if immigrants are to yield the benefits that
political participation can secure, it appears that we need to think hard about how to increase
democratic participation in our societies, and to do so with an awareness that cultural
differences can impose significant barriers to participation.
20
Appendix A. Variable Construction
Poverty
This dummy variable was constructed because a continuous income variable
would have resulted in too many lost cases, and because previous research has found a
a strong effect for poverty, but a much weaker one for wealth. A dummy for high income
was discarded when it was found not to have significant effects. The low income variable
was constructed using Statistics Canada’s Low Income Cut-Offs (LICOs) for the year
2001, a series of estimates of income levels meant to represent “relatively worse off
families” and popularly known as Canada’s poverty lines. LICOs are calculated according
to household size and size of community, and the dummy variable constructed for the
analysis correspondingly assigns individuals to low income or non-low income
(the reference group) on the basis of these three criteria.
Single
The dummy variable for single is constructed against the reference group of those who
are married or cohabiting, widowed or divorced.
Length of Residence
A dummy variable for 20 years residence or less was constructed, after separate
analyses revealed that after 20 years the effect of period of arrival was not significant.
Education
Total years of education.
Minority Status
Statistics Canada designates as racial (or 'visible') minorities those persons, other than
Aboriginal persons, 'who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in color'. Respondents
who report Chinese, South Asian, Black, Filipino, Latin American, Southeast Asian, and
Arab backgrounds are included.
Discrimination
Respondents are asked whether they have experienced discrimination at the hands of
others in the previous five years.
21
Appendix B: Countries of Origin Sample Frequencies, Percent Foreign Born
in Canada 2001 and Percent of New Immigrants to Canada 1990 and 2004
Country
3+ Generation (Canada)
United States
United Kingdom
Germany
Netherlands
Italy
Portugal
Poland
Ex-Soviet Group
Russia
Ukraine
Romania
China
Hong Kong
Philippines
India
Caribbean Group
Jamaica
Trinidad and Tobago
Vietnam
Arab League Group
Algeria
Egypt
Libya
Morocco
Sudan
Tunisia
Bahrain
Iraq
Jordan
Kuwait
Lebanon
Qatar
Saudi Arabia
Syria
United Arab Emirates
Yemen
Other
Frequency
Percent
Percent New
Foreign Born in Immigrants to
Canada, 2001
Canada, 2004
12409
388
840
376
236
502
241
172
319
380
430
291
376
216
186
192
2500
4.6
10.9
3.1
2.1
5.6
2.8
3.2
2.7
2.3
0.7
0.3
0.1
0.1
0.6
0.9
0.9
1.1
6.1
4.3
4.2
5.7
1.9
1.3
2.5
15.8
0.6
5.9
12
2.2
1.2
2.7
0.9
0.3
0.8
0.4
0.7
0.5
0.1
0.1
0.5
0.1
0.2
1.2
0.2
0.3
0.1
34
1.5
0.9
0.1
1.6
0.7
0.3
0.7
0.4
0.3
1.4
0.4
0.5
0.1
41.9
N=20,054
-- rounds to 0.0 or unavailable
http://www.migrationinformation.org/GlobalData/countrydata/data.cfm
22
Appendix C Democratization Scores
Afghanistan 0
Albania 0
Algeria 3.3
Angola
Argentina
Armenia
Australia
Austria
Azerbaijan
Bahamas
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Barbados
Belarus
Belgium
Belize
Bolivia
Bosnia and Herz.
Brazil
Brunei
Bulgaria
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Cambodia
Cameroon
Canada
Central African R.
Chile
China
Colombia
Congo
Costa Rica
Croatia
Cuba
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Djibouti
Dom. Republic
Ecuador
0
0
3.3
0
24.1
0
30.9
36.5
0
19.3
0
4.2
21.5
0
44.7
13.8
14.2
0
7.8
0
0
0
0
5.1
0.4
28.8
2.1
0
0
10.2
0
21.2
0
0
31.9
0
45.7
0
18.7
18.3
Egypt
El Salvador
Eritrea
Estonia
Ethiopia
Fiji
Finland
France
Georgia
Germany
Ghana
Greece
Greenland
Guatemala
Guinea
Guyana
Haiti
Honduras
Hungary
Iceland
India
Indonesia
Iran
Iraq
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Jamaica
Japan
Jordan
Kazakhstan
Kenya
Korea
Kuwait
Kyrgyzstan
Laos
Latvia
Lebanon
Liberia
Libya
0.7
13.6
0
0
0
0
38.6
27.6
0
39.1
0
34.7
45.7
6.6
0
7.6
0
17.3
0
46.2
16.2
0.8
4.6
0
28
35.8
44.1
14.6
25.1
0
0
0
22.9
0
0
0
0
9.5
7.7
0
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Macedonia
Madagascar
Malawi
Malaysia
Mali
Malta
Mauritius
Mexico
Moldova
Morocco
Mozambique
Myanmar
Nepal
Netherlands
New Zealand
Nicaragua
Nigeria
Norway
Pakistan
Panama
Papua New G.
Paraguay
Peru
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Qatar
Romania
Russian Fed.
Rwanda
Saudi Arabia
Senegal
Sierra Leone
Singapore
Slovakia
Slovenia
Somalia
South Africa
0
31.5
0
8.5
0
12.3
0
30
27.3
14..8
0
1
0
0
0
40
29.3
14.8
0
37.1
12.2
0
32.8
3.5
15.3
17
0
27.1
0
1.6
0.1
0
0
4.4
0.1
19.9
0
0
0
2.8
Spain
Sri Lanka
Sudan
Suriname
Sweden
Switzerland
Syria
Tanzania
Thailand
Togo
Trin. and Tobago
Tunisia
Turkey
Turkmenistan
Uganda
Ukraine
United Arab Em.
United Kingdom
United States
Uruguay
Uzbekistan
Venezuela
Vietnam
Yemen
Zambia
Zimbabwe
28.9
16.3
11.7
7
36.4
22.9
0
1
5.3
0
15.1
0
15
0
0
0
0
33.2
16.7
38.2
0
18.7
0
0
0.9
8.3
Source: Vanhanen (1989)
23
Appendix C Logistic regression estimates of voting: Immigrants compared to third plus generation Canadians
N=20,054
Model 1
Model 2
Model 3
ß
ß
ß
Constant
1.43 ***
Country of Origin
United States
United Kingdom
Germany
Netherlands
Italy
Portugal
Russia, Ukraine, Romania
Poland
People's Republic of China
Hong Kong
Philippines
India
Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago
Arab League Countries
Vietnam
Other
0.19
0.461
0.777
1.186
1.284
-0.153
-0.096
-0.168
-0.5
-0.678
-0.219
-0.133
-0.087
-0.414
-0.935
-0.252
(ns)
***
***
***
***
(ns)
(ns)
(ns)
***
***
(ns)
(ns)
(ns)
(ns)
***
***
-1.968 ***
-1.898 ***
-0.341
-0.227
0.078
0.467
0.993
-0.032
-0.603
-0.513
-0.814
-0.841
-0.478
-0.388
-0.273
-0.517
-0.625
-0.416
-0.279
-0.167
0.133
0.545
1.036
0.123
-0.203
-0.123
-0.392
-0.421
-0.072
-0.02
-0.091
-0.125
-0.27
-0.094
(ns)
(ns)
(ns)
(ns)
***
(ns)
**
**
***
***
*
*
(ns)
*
**
***
(ns)
(ns)
(ns)
(ns)
***
(ns)
(ns)
(ns)
*
*
(ns)
(ns)
(ns)
(ns)
(ns)
(ns)
Age
0.048 ***
0.046 ***
Years of Education
0.122 ***
0.122 ***
Poverty
Low income
Not low income
-0.283 ***
(rg)
-0.264 ***
(rg)
Marital status
Single
Married, cohabiting, divorced or widowed
-0.489 ***
(rg)
-0.494 ***
(rg)
Length of Residence
Residence of 20 years or less
Residence of more than 20 years
*=p<.05
-0.623 ***
(rg)
**=p<.001 ***=p<.0001
24
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