Today@Dal

How did you end up an academic in Canada?

While I was an undergraduate in Tokyo, I was part of a group of students who came to Montreal for a month to learn English. It was 1994, just before the referendum on Quebec separation, and as a 20-year-old girl from Japan – which is really ethnically homogeneous – I got fascinated with this society very quickly. I began studying international sociology with an emphasis on Canadian studies and I wrote my thesis on Canadian multiculturalism. I returned to Montreal in 1997 to start graduate work at McGill University and eventually became a professor at Dalhousie. Now my role is as educator to the new generation of social researchers who can produce solid evidence for good social policy.

What data sources do you use in your work?

One of the best-known and most complete sources of information is Statistics Canada’s Longitudinal Immigrant Database (IMDB), which contains details about the categories under which immigrants are admitted and what they do after landing here. Access to the IMDB is very restricted, which is understandable because it contains personal and private data about individuals. However, I was able to gain access to it through participation in Pathways to Prosperity, a national partnership among academics, government and NGOs that looks at immigration and immigrant integration. The IMDB finally enabled me to gather enough information about immigrants to the Atlantic region to examine questions about how immigrants are living. However, most of this information was collected from other sources, such as tax records, rather than direct interviews. I had to think clearly about who would be included in my analysis of Atlantic Canada, since people move around and then file their taxes f! rom somewhere else.

Are there other sources you will be consulting?

I am proposing to work with another statistical source called the Temporary Residents (TR) file, which captures data about individuals who came to Canada and then left, such as students or foreign workers. Since a lack of experience in the Canadian labour market is one of the greatest barriers to immigrant success, these individuals could have an advantage if they later immigrate. By linking the TR database with the IMDB, we might be able to identify those who arrived here with that kind of experience and then take stock of their success.

Read full interview (http://www.universityaffairs.ca/magazine/sponsored-content/smart-ideas-qa-yoko-yoshida-looks-faces-behind-immigrant-numbers/)