Emigration from Canada in the 1960s

Summary Emigration from Canada can be assessed only by indirect means. Here, survival ratios have been applied to the total population enumerated in the 1961 Census and to particular segments of it, so that a comparison of the calculated numbers in 1971 with the population actually enumerated indicates the volume of emigration during the decade, both in the whole population and in certain groups. Amounting to two-thirds of the number of immigrants during the same period, the estimate for the ten years is exactly double the volume of emigration reported to the Joint Parliamentary Committee on immigration policy of 1975. Since 1971, the level of emigration has probably fallen. Of the 960,000 emigrants during the decade, 42 per cent were Canadian-born. Their favourite destination was the United States; immigrants, on the other hand, tended to return home. Many immigrants now stay in Canada for only a few years. Fewer Canadians emigrate to the United States. These two factors have contributed to a new pattern of emigration, up-to-date details of which will not be ascertained before the Census of 1981.