There are a lot of important migration routes nowadays; one of pretty crowded route is between the Canada and Europe. This essay will answer the questions of migration issue among the Austrian immigration to Canada. Canada can be identified simply as a country of vast geographical size, the second largest country in the world, but with a small population of some 25 million people, and is in many ways several countries accidentally linked by the historical development, peopled by different and distinct immigrant cultures, symbolised by having two official languages.
Immigration is a big complex issue that depends on individual choice but if there should be a generalisation it would be indicate as a struggle to create a new life with hopes by sweeping the past mostly. To an answer to why is it a complex issue, it can be said that the general dissatisfaction, which means, people migrating to other countries by leaving many things behind mostly nag about the conditions of the new country in terms of racism, ethnic prejudice also native residents complain about newcomers too.
So if nothing has changed in terms of satisfaction why are these people still continuing to migrate? To make this question clearer, some points have to be highlighted as firstly brief information about how Austrians came to Canada then why Canada is attractive to Austrian residents, sociologic profile of Austrian immigrants, what are the contributions of immigrants for the migrated country and also the issue of natives feedback to immigrants. Even tough Austrian immigration seems considerably positive for Canadians, they implement discriminations and prejudice among them.
Immigrants from the Austro-Hungarian Empire began to arrive in Canada as early as the seventeenth century (who) were soldiers enrolled in French regiments which came to New France, sojourners, and settlers (Engellman, 1996, p. 45). From 1880s on, more Austro-Hungarians immigrated to Canada and, after the turn of the century they were arriving on a large scale. During the world-wide crisis (1923-1929) the unemployment rate was on average 9. 5 percent which followed on World War two by continuing rose more sharply still (Engellman, 1996, p. 59).
Moreover, in the Second World War period, Austrians had violent oppression and had fear about their on lives on racial grounds then they faced with a new problem: to find a secure place to live. Because of the unstable economy and having own problem in herself, Canada shut down their doors to large scale of refugees, but post-war period Austrian immigration also be successful, approximately 30,000 refugees and Austrian citizens found a new home there (Engellman, 1996, p. 100). The Austrian economy now offered sufficient jobs and living conditions improved; besides nowadays Austrian labour market can welcome guests.
Austrians now emigrated mainly for the sake of change; to experience a new culture or to start a new life by improve, expand or market their professional skills in the wider world. (Engellman, 1996, p. 115) In addition to former factors, some push factors can be counted; Canada has better conditions than many other countries in economical area by having 25000$ Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, having 3% inflation rate that present easier economic conditions to live in and to continue to have better conditions she would raise the living standards which is dependent to labour productivity and labour utilisation.
That labour force can be held by immigrant population. As Desikachary Vembar stated, reports shows that immigrant population have an important role to expand the Canadian population (1, 2% growth) where Europeans are decreasing, also Canada needs skilled labour pool for research, people to buy the mass products, people for development and manufacture of products so that immigration to Canada is not just for cheap labour force as other host countries but it also offers qualified jobs; doctors, architects, engineers, lawyers are needed too.
Canada present many opportunities for immigrants that seems attractive especially about citizenship as dual citizenship allowed in Canada, according to laws which means that a person is a citizen of two countries at the same time, having legal rights and obligations in connection with both countries. Eligibility for Canadian Citizenship within three years of arrival in Canada with permanent residence status, and also government facilities like welfare benefits (in case of necessity), free medical facilities, free education, old age insurance, unemployment insurance etc. view of the political stability and good standard of living are other positive images that shows Canada as a preferable destination.
In recent years social scientist propose a push and pull model of immigration which can be explained as the beginning of Austrian immigration; push factors: the unstable political situation of Austria after Cold War, unclear fate of Austrias international status, and pull factors: Canada is represents as only one of a number of potentially desirable destination and also the discontent and common hopelessness in post-war central Europe.
After this time on Canada attract many people, beside skilled and semi-skilled workers, many intellectuals, musicians, artists, and professionals left Austria (Engellman, 1996). Canada ranked in UN Human Development Index in first place for four year on high educational enrolment levels; high-quality, low cost education; universal health care; clean, safe, cosmopolitan cities; and diverse cultural and recreational amenities which also take all attention on herself as an host community. Another influential feature that Canada has is government support in terms of economical investments.
For example many opportunities in the Information Technology sector for software professionals – over 20,000 jobs unfilled in the IT sector (Canadian Immigration and Business Consultant- KAM international webpage). It can be said the migration is possible for investors as well as skilled workers as a consequence of governmental sustain. Impoverishment, overpopulation and looming unemployment are classic examples of push factors which have provided motivation for emigration from rural areas. All of this helpful features increase the attraction to Canada.
Census data (periodic snapshots of a population and its characteristics) in Canada collected every 10 years that provides useful information for the study of ethnic groups. 1991 census lists 27,130 persons who gave Austrian as a single response to the ethnic origin question (Szabo, 1996, p. 50). However the fact that the number of ethnic Austrians declines steadily in the post-war period suggests that the immigrants and their descendants have successfully integrated into Canadians multicultural society.
Last decade census shows that Austrian immigrants and their descendants marry with other Canadians, which shows patterns of intermarriage are consistent with the notion that Austrians have, generally, integrated successfully into the Canadian society (Szabo, 1996, p. 52). Census also gives some specific information about the Austrian identity in the Canada about age, gender, relationship status, use of language and income.
These informations can be shortly summarized as the mean age is almost 57 years, female attachment to the Austria is stronger than males, 60,1 percent of males had never been married although 46,4 percent of women are married, the number of children per couple with an average of two children. Moreover, the overwhelming majority (98 percent) of Austrian born immigrants claimed German as their mother tongue but new generations accepted French and especially English for having easy communication with hostiles.
Most immigrants came to achieve a better standard of living, and most appear to have attained this goal if income can be taken as an indicator. The largest proportion (one in six) earned between $30,000 and $39,999 (Engellman, 1996). These informations are given to have a chance to better understanding of the conditions of Austrians in Canada. Developed countries construct a kind of new organisation by using immigrant labour force generally in low wage jobs and this rapprochement led to native work force to work in qualified occupations but it is not happening in Canada as other host countries in the world.
In that context, The viability of some firms and industries acing international and domestic competition is dependent on immigrant labor. (U. S. Department of Labor, The Effects of Immigration on the U. S. Economy and Labor Market, May 1989). Canada has received good share of Austrian musicians who left their country for racial or political reasons one who looked for opportunities abroad, either earlier or in the post-war era. Austrians contributed to Canada in many areas; music to fine arts, writers to academics, medicine to business.
Most significant names in the music area are; Sophie Carmen Eckhardt Grammatt who began to compose music at the age of six, won numerous prizes for her compositions, Alfred Ros who has extensive collection of scores and letters at the University of Western Ontario, Karl Steiner who was invited to give an anniversary lecture-recital at the Schoenberg-Haus in Mdling near Vienna by international Schoenberg Society (Engelmann, 1996, p. 158).
Walter Curtin is another important name for photography, he took photos for Time, Star Weekly, Life magazine and National Film Board Still Division (Engelmann, 1996, p. 8). Henry Kreisel can be count for successful writers of Austrian-Canadians. His creative work is more outstanding in quality than quantity and most flourishing novels; the Rich Man (1948) and the Betrayal (1964), which deal with fate of European Jews (Engelmann, 1996 p. 169). Karl Helleiner authored several books and many articles, the best known of which is the Population of Europe from the Black Death to the Eve of the Vital Revolution in The Cambridge Economic History of Europe.
Robert Feibel has developed two techniques; the Ilizarow bone reconstruction technique and a soft tissue transplant technique developed in the treatment of farm workers in California. Peter Bentley, chairman and CEO of Canfor Corparation, he is a director of, among others, the Bank of Montreal and Shell in Canada (Engelmann, 1996 p. 181). All common features of these people are; they put great effort and be successful in the name of Canada who are rooted from Austria but adapted Canada very well.
However some people thought that Canada treats equally among each citizens, it can be said that there are many ways of proceed discrimination, which basically starts with the appliance criteria . Nearly all countries in the world have problems with the minorities in their selves so as other countries Canada has problems in terms of ethnicity and prejudice. The innocent way of abusing is using the minorities in dumb jokes as, Why does it take an Australian three days to fill the salt shaker? The punch line (The salt is forced through the little holes).
Ethnic jokes are a way of keeping minorities in their place away from the status and prestige of the majority. Allport (1954) suggests that prejudice refers to attitudes while discrimination refers to action and discrimination is related to illegitimate behaviour. When asked to the students to report whether they had been discriminated against in various situations, and what types of discrimination they involved, it has seen that discrimination take form of ethic jokes, verbal abuse, language ridicule, hate literature, physical attack and in serious forms, vandalism (Extreme cases generally happens to Jews) (Driedger, 1996).
Also as an effect of politic situation, capitalism tended to promote individual rights and often sacrificed the welfare of others, usually the workers and the mass, which can be defined as labour force coming from other countries in the post-war period that Austria can placed in that category. A research about the attitudes related to race indicates that, 47 percent of Canadians feel their selves uncomfortable with the way Canadian society is changing as a result of all the new people coming to live in Canada where 42 percent said they are comfortable with it (Simeon et al. 997 p. 146).
Same research also shows that Canadians want minorities to assimilate in Canadian culture as what Americans wants from Mexicans. So it can be inferred that if the general dissatisfaction and the willing of assimilation increases the ties between hostiles and immigrants can be broken, which can cause big problems between two nations. With all the contributions to Canada that Austrians made from 1860s up to now, they just deserved much more equality in both written and especially unwritten laws which can be clearly seen from societies treatment to Austrian-Canadians.
