The Measurement of Ethnic Diversity in a Post 9-11 World

Gustave Goldmann, Statistics Canada

In April 1992 Statistics Canada and the United States Bureau of the Census organised a conference on the measurement of ethnic diversity. The title “Challenges of Measuring an Ethnic World: Science, politics and reality” is an indication of the scope of the content covered during this conference. The published proceedings of the conference represent the state of the knowledge and thinking about measuring ethnic diversity in the early 1990s. We are now just over 25 years older and hopefully wiser. Applying what we have learned during the quarter century that has passed since the 1992 conference, this paper will address the following questions: • Is Canadian society more ethnically diverse at the start of the 21st Century than 25 years ago? • To what extent is ethnic mobility a measurable phenomenon in Canadian society? • What factors contribute to ethnic retention (or loss) across generations and across ethnic groups?