Concept: Immigration trajectories

Introduction

When identifying immigrants using data in the Manitoba Population Repository is to use Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) Registry Permanent Resident Data (IRCC-PR) and Temporary Resident Permit Data (IRCC-TRP), as described in the concept “Determining Immigrant Status in Manitoba Population Repository”, it is possible to assemble the trajectories that individuals follow through multiple entries into Canada. Temporary resident permits are for a short-term stay, while a permanent resident landing record represents a longer term or permanent stay. Patterns of migration can be observed by assembling TRP and PR records for individuals in a study population, and the frequencies of various patterns can be assessed.

Data Sources

The data used for this concept came from the following Repository database:

• Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) – Registry Database Permanent Resident and Temporary Resident Permit data

Results of simple analysis

The majority of individuals who enter the country under temporary permits have 2 or more permits (68%, vs 32% who have a single TRP record). Individuals who obtain both study and work permits tend more commonly to enter the country first under study permits, before obtaining work permits, rather than the other way around.

It is rare, but not unheard of (a little less than 1% of permanent residents), for individuals to have multiple PR landing records, indicating they left the country having already attained permanent resident status, and then came back under a new PR application. More commonly, individuals may enter the country repeatedly under multiple study or work permits, and then ultimately attain PR status (24.7% of Manitoba immigrants had 1 or more temporary permits before obtaining PR status, and 19% resided in Manitoba for both TR and PR stays). Work permits in particular are a common path to PR status: in Manitoba, 13% of immigrants with PR status had at least 1 prior work permit.

There are also occurrences of individuals who obtain temporary permits after having attained permanent resident status, though this is relatively rare (0.77% of PR in Manitoba). In the majority of these cases (77%), there is at least 1 year between their arrival as PR and a subsequent temporary permit.

Of the almost half million people who entered Manitoba under a temporary work permit, 11.4% of them had at least 1 study permit issued previously.

Sample SAS® code for this analysis is provided in the SAS code and formats section below (internal to MCHP only).