Immigrants’ Political Ideology and Party Preferences Pre- and Post-migration

• In Event: Groups and Representation in Canada

Abstract

This paper asks to what extent individuals’ political ideology and party preferences transfer from one country to another. Disagreement exists in the literature about whether political attitudes and behaviors are formed early in life and are resistant to change, or are highly adaptable in response to political experiences in a new context and as a migrant. We use data from the 2021 Canadian Election Survey with an over-representation of new Canadian residents, and which includes measures of self-assessed pre- and post-migration political ideology and party preferences. We show how new Canadian residents report a greater preference for Canadian political parties to the left of the parties they preferred pre-migration. This finding is in line with the literature on immigrants’ vote choice that shows a preference of parties on the left of the political spectrum among immigrants, but sharply contrasts with our second finding: new Canadian residents simultaneously report a shift to the ideological right post-migration. We discuss the implications of these findings for the literature.

Authors

• Eline A. de Rooij, Simon Fraser University

• Maxime Coulombe, Concordia University