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SOAN 2120 Research Paper: Visible Minorities and Well-being Ehimema Idumu 1054788 Trisha Einmann Wednesday 27th November, 2019

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Abstract Entering into a new environment takes a long time for one to adjust. With time to adjust to rules and regulations that might differ from their former countries as well as making ends meet to provide to oneself cause one to steadily lose themselves and be stressed out. With that said, this research will examine various aspects of mental health including well-being, emotional problems, stress levels and main sources of stress amongst visible minority especially newly landed immigrants in Canada. This paper will discuss a statistical analysis of the material using data from the Time-Use and Well-Being dataset. From the dataset, it analyzes the data using the analysis of variance to examine the relationship between variables visible minorities status and their subjective well being. Results shows visible minorities reporting less that they are satisfied with their well-being compared to non-visible minorities. This newfound analysis will then be used by future researchers as reference so as to expand on the challenges visible minorities face in any given environment.

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Literature Review The purpose of this literature review is to demonstrate the lack of support and aid to help visible minorities integrate into Canada due to being in a new environment as well as the importance of raising their well-being for them to function well in their new society. Visible Minorities are defined according to the government of Canada as persons other than Indigenous people who are not white or Caucasian (visible minority, n.d.). According to the 2001 census, almost four million Canadians identify themselves as visible minority which means that most of the Canadian population comprises people born outside of Canada (Stafford, Newbold & Ross, 2011). As for well-being, it is the status of one’s health to which determines our moods and behaviour in our everyday lives. Through support and services from the community, it will help to maintain it so that individuals will be able to function well in society. Unfortunately, certain groups of individuals do not have the luxury of acquiring the said services. Information provided in this research project from the articles will be beneficial to different minority groups as their level of stress varies over time, and the resulting information will give us insight on ideas of where these groups are standing in Canada and come up with solutions on how to help and aid in their transition into their environment. The emotional and mental well-being is lower within visible minority immigrants are due to how stressful “integrating into a new environment can be for them compared to those who have lived here for their whole lives” (Mary, Jonathan & Jerome, 2005). As Canada becomes diverse, the income gap between visible minorities and nonminorities is steadily growing. The economic instability is also affecting visible minority immigrants to which according to a demographic survey done by Palameta (2004) says that “47% of recent immigrants were below the LICO for at least one of the six years compared to

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non-immigrants which affects 1 in 5 of them.” Moreover, the policies surrounding income do not help in this situation as the determinant for wage distribution is based on pay for performance schedules, which leaves workers vulnerable to make ends meet for themselves and their families. It also leads to employment instability as workers will start to phase out critical provisions from their jobs to get the benefits and incentives accordingly. The recent studies that were conducted through the SLID concludes that “recent immigrants that are younger are more likely to be visible minorities and have higher rates of low income than other Canadians” (Scott-Marshall, 2010) which means that burning out oneself for profit will be all for naught and will start to affect the well being of visible minorities. Due to the way work conditions are overtime culture in nature, the next step is to look towards the mental state of working visible minorities. The mental well being of visible minorities is the central aspect of how the country will be able to support the needs so that they will be comfortable in their community. Unfortunately, the needs of citizens are sometimes ignored or set aside due to the growing and diverse nature of Canada. Naidoo (1992) brings evidence that given the popular trends on population, this diversity will continue to be an increasingly salient feature of Canadian society. New demands have arisen to which the well-being of visible minorities needing help to have access to it is part of the problem and without social support in a new cultural, social and physical environment contrary to theirs, it can alter their psychological well-being for the worse”(Stafford et al., 2011).

Another factor that increases the stress level and well-being of visible minorities is age because discrimination is apparent in the workforce. 1 in 5 visible minorities reports some form of discrimination when applying to a job or in a workplace, which fails to acquire a job that they will enjoy and profit. According to Scott-Marshall (2010), he drew through forecasts and his

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graphs that the working population between 1991 and 2011, has increased from 29% - 41% of individuals between 45 to 64 years of age. As a result, younger workers have no way of acquiring income because older workers generally occupy most employment areas. On the other hand, seniors that newly migrated are also suspected to experience low income because they were unable to accumulate enough pension wealth whereas those that have lived who get their wealth from pensions or government transfers. However, in Palameta’s (2004) work, they were not much in-depth with the older age because they are mostly living with their families, which signifies that they do not always use their pension for their needs. The data used in this study are taken from The Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID), which has been a source of longitudinal data since 1993. The target population for the data was limited to persons 18 and above. Their responses were assessed through surveys and interviews which entails their level of stress and to state their well-being in their new environment. It was later found out that youths reported that they experience high levels of stress as much as adults due to school expectations and peer pressure (Mary et al, 2005). This means that the survey limited responses from younger individuals as they found limited information regarding that group due to how underrepresented visible minorities are in data sets. There was also the issue of cross-cultural research which is found to be limited as well. It is important to know that visible minorities deserved to have available services for them to cope with their needs in a new environment. With that in mind, the methods discussed in the literature found limited information about them which prevents one to understand their dilemma. As a result, they are faced with barriers like the language barrier, low income and job insecurity, etc. which stunts their integration growth due to lack of social support to ease them into the

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community. Now that the literature has been outlined, the statistical methods used in this paper will be outlined. Methods The data used in this study are taken from Statistics Canada’s Time-Use and Well-being General Social Survey. The target population for the survey was persons aged 15 years or older in Canada. The population did not include residents of the Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut, or full-time residents of institutions. The final sample for the original survey includes 17,390 respondents. The analyses are weighted to account for the complex sampling design of the survey. The study includes variables for visible minority status and subjective well-being. Visible minority status is a categorical variable and is coded such that one represented a visible minority, two represented not a visible minority, six represented valid skip, seven represented don’t know, eight represented refusal and nine represented not stated; responses from six to nine are missing values so they are excluded in the analysis. The subjective well-being variable is quantitative and is coded to which zero represents very dissatisfied, ten represents very satisfied, ninety-six represents valid skip, ninety-seven represents don’t know, ninety-eight represents refusal and ninety- nine represents not stated; responses from ninety-six to ninety-nine are missing values so they are excluded in the analysis. This study will use analysis of variance (ANOVA) to examine the relationship between visible minority status and subjective well-being.

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Results Table 1: Descriptive statistics for Visible minority status and subjective well-being Variable Name Mean/Percentage Visible Minority Status Yes 18.6% No 81.4% Subjective Well-being

N= 28,682,170

Very satisfied

Interpretation The number of people represented in this analysis is 28,682,170. The table above shows the descriptive statistics of visible minority status and subjective wellbeing. The data for variable, Visible Minority Status shows that 18.6% of responders identified themselves as a visible minority, while the remaining 81.4% do not identify themselves as a visible minority. On average, people’s response to their subjective well-being shows a mean of 7.59, which corresponds closely to very satisfied.

Table 2: ANOVA between Visible minority status and subjective well-being Subjective Well-being Visible Minority Status Visible Minority Very satisfied Not a Visible Minority

Very satisfied

Interpretation The number of people represented in this analysis is 28,561,096.

N= 28,561,096 ***

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The relationship between visible minority status and the frequency of subjective well-being is significant at an alpha level of 0.001, meaning we can be 99.9 percent confident that the results are not due to chance. A score of 7.313 (visible minority) indicates that on average, respondents report that they are very satisfied with their well-being while a score of 7.653 (Not a visible minority) indicates that on average, respondents report that they are very satisfied with their well-being. Even though the average category for both groups is “very satisfied,” non-visible minorities are more likely to report that they have better well-being than visible minorities. The difference of subjective wellbeing between the visible and non-visible minorities is statistically significant at an alpha level of p...