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More information on Mobility 5: Mobility status - Place of residence 5 years ago

Censuses:

2006 (1/5 sample), 2001 (1/5 sample), 1996 (1/5 sample), 1991 (1/5 sample), 1986 (1/5 sample), 1981 (1/5 sample), 1976 (1/3 sample), 1971 (1/3 sample), 1961 (1/5 sample)

Reported for:

Population 5 years of age and over residing in Canada, excluding institutional residents and Canadians (military and government personnel) in households outside Canada

Question number:

Derived variable: Question 24

Responses:

Not applicable

Remarks:

This variable is derived from the following response categories: Lived at the same address as now; Lived at a different address, but in the same census subdivision (CSD) as now; Lived in a different CSD in Canada (respondent provides name of CSD [municipality] and province or territory); Lived outside Canada (respondent gives name of the country).

For information on historical comparability of Mobility status – Place of residence 5 years ago from 1961 on, see Appendix I.

With respect to external migration, immigrants – persons who were residing outside Canada five years earlier, but within Canada on Census Day – are counted. This is not to be confused with 'landed immigrants'; see Immigration: Year of immigration. When external migrants report their country of residence five years ago, they report the country based on current geographic boundaries.

Emigrants – persons residing in Canada five years ago, but not on Census Day – are not counted.

Different types of internal migration are derived based on various aggregations of CSDs (e.g., to CDs, CMAs). In-migration, out-migration, net internal migration, migration streams and origin-destination matrices can be produced from the database.

In-migration is defined as a movement into a CSD (or CSD aggregation) from elsewhere in Canada, within the five years prior to Census Day. Persons who made such a move are called in-migrants.

Out-migration is defined as a movement out of a CSD (or CSD aggregation) to elsewhere in Canada, within the five years prior to Census Day. Persons who made such a move are called out-migrants.

Net internal migration refers to the number of in-migrants into a CSD(or CSD aggregation) minus the number of out-migrants from the same CSD (or CSD aggregation), within the five years prior to Census Day.

Migration stream refers to a body of migrants having a common CSD (or CSD aggregation) of origin and a common CSD (or CSD aggregation) of destination.

Origin-destination matrix refers to data on migrants, cross-classified by area of origin (CSD or CSD aggregation) and area of destination (CSD or CSD aggregation) to form a matrix of streams, or a set of pairs of streams, each pair representing movement in opposite directions.

The concept of "migrants" is defined at the CSD level. For geographic levels below the CSD, such as collection units (CUs) or dissemination areas (DAs) and census tracts (CTs), the distinction between the migrant and non-migrant population refers to the corresponding CSD of the CU, DA or CT. For example, migrants within a CT are those persons who moved from a different CSD, while non-migrants are those who moved within the same CSD, although they moved in from a different CT in the same CSD or moved within the same CT.

When tabulating usual place of residence five years ago by current place of residence, all geographic areas reflect their 2006 boundaries, even when referred to as places of residence in 2001. This applies to all boundary changes between censuses (e.g. census metropolitan areas, census divisions and census subdivisions).

For further details, see the following Mobility 5 variables:

• Census division of residence 5 years ago,
• Census metropolitan area or census agglomeration of residence 5 years ago,
• Census subdivision of residence 5 years ago,
• Census subdivision type of residence 5 years ago,
• Country of residence 5 years ago,
• Population size of census subdivision of residence 5 years ago,
• Population size of current census subdivision of residence,
• Province or territory of residence 5 years ago and
• Rural/urban classification of place of residence 5 years ago.

See also Figure 10 and the section on geography for corresponding current places (e.g. province and census division) of residence and geographic definitions.

It should be noted that data are not published for all possible mobility and migration classifications, but are available upon special request, subject to confidentiality constraints.

The reader is directed to Figure 12, where the relationship between the 2006 Census question on place of residence 5 years earlier and the Mobility status (5 years ago) conceptual framework is illustrated.