Immegrant Retention

Basic Aspects of the Issue

One solution for rural depopulation in many people's minds is immigration. With so man people living in other parts of the world and so few in the rural areas, it seems natural for people to think that immigrants would be happy to come here to live. They trouble is, when immigrants come they very quickly move to the cities looking for work and other programs (e.g. language instruction) just as soon as they can manage it.

A good example of this phenomenon in Manitoba was the arrival of the "boat people" in the late 1970's, and their movement to larger centers a few years later. There simply are very few jobs in the Westman area. This issue ties in with the issue of migration of youth, for much the same reason.

Tweeten, in his book Fundamentals of Agricultural Policy spends considerable time reflecting on the population shift out of the agricultural areas to the cities, noting that this is not only understandable, but essential in terms of the actual farm population. With those people gone, the service delivery needs are much lower in the towns, so naturally people will go where the jobs are. After all, "self support" is one of he expectations we have of immigrants.

Rural Development Institute Research Studies

• "Economic Development and Immigrant Employment and opportunities in Rural Manitoba" -Jack Lam
  This study deals with the rural retention of immigrants and the reduction of urban flight after arrival. The study is based on a survey and interviews with key leaders in rural communities. It is designed to look at job availability and assimilation support services (both of which seem to be lacking).

• "Globalization and Regionalism: Social and Rural Impacts" - Yves Chaloult. Chapter 16 in Changing Rural Institutions
  This a very hopeful article in that the author does not see the inevitability of the underlying philosophy of globalization as necessarily connected to the "inevitability " of globalization itself. He is very much pro consumer and human rights as well as the preservation of cultural values. That puts him very much against the headlong plunge towards universal liberal economic philosophy.

  He notes the ravages that liberal economic philosophy has wrecked on rural society commenting that poverty there is rampant despite that fact that the ratio of rural to urban population has dropped from 2/3 to 1/3 overall. His focus is on the North and south American situation which is targeted to become the largest trading block in the world by 2005, having started by mutual agreement to go in that direction in 1994.

Other Resources