Sociologist examines latest wave of Ukrainian immigration to Canada

by Andrij Makuch

TORONTO - Prof. Wsewolod Isajiw, a prominent Ukrainian Canadian sociologist, recently revealed some preliminary findings from a groundbreaking study of the latest wave of Ukrainian immigrants to Canada. Speaking at the University of Toronto on January 28 at a seminar co-sponsored by the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies and the Peter Jacyk Program for the Study of Ukraine, Prof. Isajiw addressed the topic "Fourth Wave Immigrants from Ukraine, 1991-2001: Results of a New Study."

The information presented at this event was gathered in the course of a wide-ranging study on the Fourth Wave of Ukrainian immigration to Canada." The research was undertaken by Prof. Isajiw, Robert F. Harney Professor Emeritus of Ethnic, Immigration and Pluralism Studies, University of Toronto; Prof. Victor Satzewich, Sociology, McMaster University, Hamilton; and Ewhen Duvalko, executive director, Canadian Ukrainian Immigrant Aid Society, Toronto; with the assistance of Iroida Wynnyckyj and Katya Duvalko. The Heritage Foundation of the 1st Security Federal Savings Bank of Chicago, whose president is Julian Kulas, provided funding for the project.

The subject of study of the so-called "Fourth Wave" are those Ukrainians who came to North America from 1991 to 2001, and continue to arrive even today. Prof. Isajiw estimated their number to be approximately 18,000 to 20,000 in Canada and at least 100,000 in the United States. He added that, "technically," he would call this a "Fifth Wave" of Ukrainian immigration, as it was preceded by Ukrainian immigrants from Poland in the 1980s, but was amenable to considering it as the second phase of a "Fourth Wave."

The information gathered for the project came from 304 interviews, conducted in the Toronto area between November 2000 and January 2001. The interviews, consisting of 161 questions, were conducted by 10 research assistants, who themselves were mainly recent arrivals. The data from the study are still being analyzed, so that the seminar, as Prof. Isajiw emphasized, should be regarded as the results of a work in progress.

The study, and the seminar, addressed two major questions.

The first: How well are the new Ukrainian Canadians adapting to the Canadian economic system? This is examined within the context of Canada's immigration policy which, from the mid-1970s to late 2001 (a major overhaul of Canadian immigration policy was announced recently), sought to match immigrants directly with existing labor needs.

The second: How well, if at all, do the new immigrants integrate into Toronto's Ukrainian community? This is considered through the prism of the theory posed by Louis Hartz, a sociologist best-known for his study "The Founding of New Societies," that new immigrants live for a long time by issues that were significant to them in their home country before their departure.

Getting into the subject matter proper, Prof. Isajiw provided a basic profile of the immigrants. Ninety percent were born in Ukraine, and 90 percent came as independent immigrants (the remaining 10 percent arrived sponsored). Just over one-quarter (26 percent) have taken Canadian citizenship.

They are divided almost equally between males and females. Most (78.6 percent) are married, while 11 percent are single and 9 percent divorced or separated. Their average age upon arrival was 35.4, while their average age at the time of being interviewed was 39, indicating that they had been in Canada, on average, for just over 3.5 years.

An interesting statistic, considering the Toronto housing market, is that 22 percent are homeowners.

Seventeen percent have no children, while 31.9 percent had one and 45 percent have two. Eighty-nine percent are working full-time, although only 43 percent use specific skills acquired in Ukraine in their work.

The principal area from which they emigrated was "Greater" Ukraine (i.e., Central and Eastern Ukraine, 50 percent), with western Ukraine (Halychyna and Bukovyna) following at 41 percent, and southern Ukraine (and "other" regions) coming in at 9 percent. Significantly, 26 percent of all those who emigrated from Ukraine to Canada came from Kyiv and 24 percent from Lviv.

Later in the seminar, Prof. Isajiw noted the high educational achievement of the immigrants: 12.8 percent had degrees from an "uchylyshche," or a "tekhnikum," 37 percent from an "instytut," and 36.1 percent from a university. As well, he noted their religious affiliation (at the time of emigration) as being split among Ukrainian Orthodox (37 percent), Russian Orthodox (16 percent), Catholics (27 percent) and non-believers (11 percent).

Prof. Isajiw noted that while Ukrainian immigrants are fairly well integrated into the Canadian economy, they generally tended to be overqualified for the work they were doing. As such, Canada has done very well by Ukrainian immigration.

A host of statistics preceded this conclusion. Regarding employment before and after emigration, Prof. Isajiw noted that the field of computing became significantly more important for immigrants (with the ratio of their employment in this field rising from 15.2 percent while in Ukraine to 20.1 after arriving in Canada). Business and entrepreneurship also saw a rise, from 3.4 percent to 6.4 percent.

On the other hand, engineering (an astonishing decline from 22.4 percent to 0.7 percent) and "professional" work (12.1 percent to 3.7 percent), as well as work in the humanities (13.8 percent to 2.0 percent) and management (7.6 percent to 2.7 percent) took sharp dives. Unskilled manual labor, meanwhile, experienced a temporary spike from 0.0 percent (in Ukraine) to 19.1 percent as a first job in Canada to a current level of 4.0 percent.

The speaker also examined the issues of "difficulty finding work" (where lack of Canadian contacts and Canadian experience, as well as a lack of English fluency were cited as major problems) and "attitudes and opinions" (in which it emerged, in unrelated questions, that almost half of the respondents felt that they were overqualified for their current jobs, yet over half were generally satisfied with their jobs).

Prof. Isajiw then turned to the integration of the new immigrants into the Ukrainian community, the other major question addressed by the study. The conclusion was unequivocal: new arrivals have not linked up with the "hromada" in any significant way. Their active participation in existing Ukrainian organizations stood at 9 percent and in Ukrainian organizations for new arrivals at 4 percent. Their attendance of activities sponsored by Ukrainian organizations was 8.0 percent "very often"; 23.7 percent "time to time"; 20.1 percent "rarely"; and 48.2 percent "never."

Even informally the new immigrants have maintained a certain social distance from local Ukrainian Canadians: less than 27 percent agreed or strongly agreed that it was "easy to make friends with Ukrainian Canadians" (compared to just over 41 percent for making friends with non-Ukrainian Canadians).

Nevertheless, the new arrivals by and large are interested in Ukrainian matters. A full 92.3 percent indicated that they feel it is important to pass on a sense of Ukrainian culture to their children, 50 percent send their children to a Ukrainian school, and 24 percent send their children to dance lessons. Almost 82 percent read Ukrainian Canadian newspapers often or from time to time, while 66.8 maintain a strong interest in Ukrainian politics.

In conclusion, Prof. Isajiw reiterated his major findings and revisited some of his statistics on language (which are not mentioned in this report) and cultural identification. He also noted that the Russian Ukrainian language mix among the recent arrivals - to some degree an object of derision among local Ukrainian Canadians - is still very common and unlikely to change in the foreseeable future.

Several significant matters were raised during the subsequent question-and-answer session. The first question asked how representative a sample was the group studied, given the fact that the name list for possible interviewees was generated from a Canadian Ukrainian Immigrant Aid Society list. Prof. Isajiw replied that the fact that the list includes over half of the "Fourth Wave" immigrants renders it fairly neutral in scope and that the names were picked at random from it.

Another query focused on what the results for a comparable survey in the United States might yield. The speaker remarked that there were numerous differentiating factors between Canada and the United States, so that it is not realistic to speculate on this matter. At the same time, he added that the backers of this undertaking were interested in the possibility of extending this examination to the situation in the United States.

One commentator subsequently suggested that the larger numbers of new Ukrainian immigrants to the United States and the relatively weaker condition of community organizations in that country rendered them more likely to being taken over by recent arrivals. Conversely, the very strength of Toronto's Ukrainian community may well mitigate the successful integration of recent immigrants from Ukraine, insofar as they are unable to assume dominant positions (i.e., take them over or enter the scene on their own terms).

Finally, socio-linguistic and regional questions were raised. Questions were asked about the recent immigrants' relations with the large Russophone population in the Toronto region, as well as the impact of the close Galician/Ukrainophone identification upon the survey results. Regarding the former, Prof. Isajiw noted that the matter was simply never explored; as for the latter, he added that the data are still very fresh and had not yet been examined.

Andrij Makuch is research coordinator of the Ukrainian Canadian Program at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, March 10, 2002, No. 10, Vol. LXX

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