Capturing the Diversity within Canadian Families
Abstract
Mixed partnerships are unions between two people that cross socially constructed boundaries between groups, particularly race and ethnicity and they are an aspect of diversity within Canadian society. Using the 2006 and 2016 Canadian long-form censuses, I examine mixed unions, measured as partnerships across different visible minority categories and places of birth. I find that there is more diversity within unions than what is captured just using visible minority status. Being highly educated, living in census metropolitan areas, and in same-sex partnerships are predictors of mixed unions indicative of barriers to mixed partnerships possibly being less salient among these groups. While examining egalitarianism, I find that unions with a white and visible minority partner are less equal across four measures of egalitarianism used (wage, income, household work, childcare) in comparison to white-white unions and mixed couples by place of birth are also less egalitarian than Canadian-born couples.