Ethno-Racial Inequality in the City of Toronto: An Analysis of the ...

EUROPEAN ORIGIN GROUPS TEND TO BE OLDERThe European ethno-racial groups tend to have fewer young people and more older people than thenon-Europeans. European-origin groups account for half the population under the age of 20, but threequartersof the population over 64. There are also dramatic age differences among the nearly 30 groupsof European origin. The English and French, along with the ethnic groups established by large-scaleimmigration before the First World War – Finns, Estonians, Ukrainians, and so on – have fewer youngpeople and many more elderly. For these groups, only about 5 percent are under 15 years of age,compared to the population average of 18.0 percent. These figures probably result from relatively lowfertility, but the dramatically larger number of older people in these groups must also reflect the tendencyof their children to report a different ethno-racial membership than their parents. Perhaps they think ofthemselves as “Canadian” or perhaps their parents were often from two different ethno-racial groups, sotheir children report more than one ancestry in the Census.The Polish, Romanian and Russian groups, presumably because their numbers are supplemented bypost-Soviet immigration, have younger populations with an age distribution similar to the City average.The Portuguese community, on the other hand, has a high proportion of young people, 18.8 percent,under 15, and relatively few members, 8.1 percent, 65 or older.A number of the Southern European ethno-racial groups have much higher proportions of peoplebetween 45 and 64 than over 64, suggesting a large, coming increase in the proportion of elderly. Amongall Europeans, 24.8 percent are 45-64 and 17.5 percent are 65 and older. For Greeks, the correspondingproportions are 30.5 and 11.5 percent; for Croatians, 31.8 and 12.5 percent, and for Maltese 5.7 and 12.8percent, and for the Portuguese 21.9 and 8.1 percent.NON-EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES, EXCEPT FOR EAST AND SOUTHEAST ASIANS, ARE YOUNGERTable 1 shows that Aboriginal people and Torontonians of Black, African and Caribbean origin,South Asians, Arab and West Asian groups and Latin Americans – all the non-Europeans except the Eastand Southeast Asians – have younger than average age profiles. In some of the regional groups, theaverages conceal a great deal of variation, primarily in the balance among very young people, youngadults, and middle-aged adults, as the proportions over the age of 64 are low and relatively uniform. Forexample, there are many more young children in the “African and Black” group, 44.1 percent under theage of 15, than among Jamaicans, with only 26.8 percent under 15; and 42.8 percent of Ghanaians areunder 15, compared to 22.3 percent of Ethiopians.Ethno-Racial Inequality in Toronto: Analysis of the 1996 Census 19