New immigrants less happy than longer-term Canadians, poll finds

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A new poll from Angus Reid finds a majority of Canadians still consider themselves to be happy, but that number has been decreasing in recent years. What’s more, non-white and new Canadians seem to be faring the worst in the growing trend of unhappiness.

The survey questioned more than 1,600 adult Canadians last summer, resulting in a margin of error of plus or minus two per cent, 19 times of out 20. It found that 61 per cent of Canadians identified themselves as “very happy” or “pretty happy” in their lives, with the over-55s leading the pack at 68 per cent.

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However, that still left more than a third of Canadians in the “not too happy” or “not happy at all” camps, and that group has grown in size compared to a similar poll taken almost a decade ago.

In the category of “your outlook on life,” 79 per cent of Canadians in 2015 described themselves as satisfied or very satisfied, with just 21 per cent calling themselves unsatisfied or very unsatisfied. But in the new poll, the satisfied group fell to 70 per cent, with the unsatisfied taking up the other 30 per cent.

There also appears to be a correlation between one’s time in Canada and one’s levels of satisfaction, and another between happiness and ethnicity.

The survey found that people born in Canada were most likely to be very or pretty happy (64 per cent) versus not too happy or not happy at all (35 per cent) compared to immigrants who have been here for 20 years or less. That group was more likely to report being unhappy (48 per cent) than happy (45 per cent), with 7 per cent saying they weren’t sure.

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However, among immigrants with more than 20 years in Canada, the numbers rebounded. Long-term immigrant Canadians mostly reported they were happy (60 per cent) rather than unhappy (39 per cent), a number more in line with those born in Canada.

An ethnic split was also seen. Canadians who identified as white were clustered toward the happy end of the spectrum (65 per cent) rather than the unhappy end (33 per cent), while those who said they were non-white were more evenly split, with 52 per cent saying they were happy, and 45 per cent unhappy.

Shachi Kurl, president of Angus Reid, said it’s not surprising to find Canada’s new immigrant population faring less well than the average Canadian.

“To uproot yourself from your home country, to try to reestablish yourself in a new country, not only financially and professionally but also socially, it’s not easy,” she said.

“I say this as the daughter of immigrants,” she added, noting that her own parents came here from India in the late 1960s.

But the numbers also suggest that happiness should increase as people spend more time in Canada and put down deeper roots. There’s also something called “opinion alignment,” she said, where views as well as emotions tend to dovetail with those of the native population over time.

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Regarding the overall drop in happiness since the 2015 poll, Kurl listed a number of factors, including the ongoing cost-of-living crisis and “the trailing effects on post-pandemic isolation.”

“We have not come out of that entirely,” she said. “Who knows how long it will take?”

There was a mix of good news and bad among individual metrics. While a vast majority of Canadians (85 per cent) rated themselves satisfied with their relationship with their family and how others think of them, as well as their dwelling place (81 per cent) and support systems (80 per cent), those numbers dropped off for other aspects of life.

For instance, at the bottom of the scale, only 53 per cent said they were satisfied with their personal financial situation, 56 per cent with their stress levels, and 69 per cent with their health.

This might be why Angus Reid chose a Dickensian title to report its findings: “Great Expectations or Bleak House?” It also noted that the numbers told “A Tale of Two Cities.”

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