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CalgaryChris77 t1_iy8c510 wrote

Reply to comment by cangeola in Immigrant children born in Canada are less likely to follow religion [OC] by cangeola

Are you interpreting this data correctly?

I would suspect that more first generation Canadians who have immigrated recently have come from countries that are Muslim, Sikh, Hindu or Buddhist, whereas more second generation Canadians came from Christian countries.

The demographics of the average Canadians immigrant has changed pretty dramatically in the last 30 years.

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atomofconsumption t1_iy8dqit wrote

Good point, you'd have to control for "among second generation Canadians whose parents were Muslim, x% were Muslim"

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cangeola OP t1_iy8e3qr wrote

Good point, although I'm not sure that level of granularity is available in the census.

When I saw that Christianity had an increase, I was a bit surprised considering the overall trend in Canada is toward secularity.

But another reason may be that Canada is a young country, and a lot of religions other than Christianity haven't had the time to grow beyond the 2nd generation

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atomofconsumption t1_iy8i0ac wrote

What you're mixing up is composition vs change.

Christianity is not increasing, it's falling. However, recent immigrants are less likely to be Christian.

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/221026/dq221026b-eng.htm

> The majority of the population is Christian, but their share is decreasing In 2021, more than 19.3 million people reported a Christian religion, or just over half of the Canadian population (53.3%). However, this percentage is down from 67.3% in 2011 and 77.1% in 2001.

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cangeola OP t1_iy8golw wrote

I think it is ‘factual’ to say that second generation Canadians are more likely to be non-religious.

But I do get your point. You’re asking whether the ‘pipeline’ for religions other than Christianity has been established in Canada long enough to make use of this data? And if it can be linked with parents in anyway?

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CalgaryChris77 t1_iy8hbls wrote

Yes, second generation Canadians are more likely to be non-religious.

> I noticed when you break down by generation, religion seems to be dropping.

But to me this implies that people are losing their religion by their second generation, which I don't know if you can prove or disprove from this data.

>You’re asking whether the ‘pipeline’ for religions other than Christianity has been established in Canada long enough to make use of this data?

There have been people from other religions immigrating to Canada for many years, but what used to be a tiny minority is growing much faster now.

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PajeetLvsBobsNVegane t1_iya0xzy wrote

Yh I think the data has been misinterpreted. What it is actually saying is that Christians and non-religious (and Jews) are less likely to be immigrants to Canada. And I didn't even study statistics past the age of 16.

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cangeola OP t1_iyarfx5 wrote

The data is correct, since it’s it’s just raw numbers from statscan tables. The other poster is right that this is composition not changes.

A better title, I think, would be that Second Generation Canadians compose of secular perspectives more often than First Generation.

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