Mixed marriage couples increasing rapidly in Canada

Mixed unions in Canada are growing five times faster than other couples, a new report from Statistics Canada shows, and their ranks swelled by one-third in the five-year period before the most recent census count.

The 2006 census counted 289,400 mixed couples involving one visible minority and another non-visible minority or two people from different visible minority groups, the agency says. That was a 33 per cent increase over 2001. In contrast, all types of couples grew by just six per cent in that same period.

Of those mixed couples, about 86 per cent included one visible minority person and another who is not, accounting for 3.3 per cent of all couples in Canada. The remaining couples were comprised of two different visible minorities, making up 0.6 per cent of all couples.

Mixed unions become more likely the longer someone has been in Canada. Among first-generation visible minorities, or those born outside of Canada, 12 per cent of those coupled off were in mixed union couples, Statistics Canada says. That proportion rises to over one-half (51 per cent) for second-generation visible minorities who were born in Canada but have at least one parent born outside the country, and to more than two-thirds (69 per cent) for third-generation visible minorities whose parents were born in Canada.

In terms of minority groups, Japanese people are most likely to marry or form partnerships outside their group, the agency says, with about 75 per cent of Japanese in Canada pairing with a non-Japanese person. They were followed by Latin Americans and blacks.

And mixed unions are "an urban phenomenon," Statistics Canada says, with 5.1 per cent of couples in Canada’s major cities in mixed unions, compared to 1.4 per cent of those in rural areas and small towns. With 8.5. per cent of couples in mixed unions, Vancouver is home to the highest proportion in the country.