Ethnicity through the Family Lens: Characteristics of Household Structures among Canada’s Ethnic Groups in 1901

Simona Bignami , Université de Montréal
Daniela Ghio, University of Catania
Francesca Bitonti
Laurence Véronneau, Université de Montréal
Kris Inwood, University of Guelph

The settlement of Western Canada at the close of the 19th century gave rise to three overlapping population movements: the regional displacement of Indigenous peoples through treaty processes; the westward migration of Canadian-born settlers from Eastern Canada; and the arrival of European immigrants drawn first by gold prospecting and later by agricultural opportunities. These demographic shifts profoundly reshaped household and family structures—though the full extent of this transformation remains unclear due to historical data limitations. This paper seeks to address that gap by leveraging the newly released full-count data from the 1901 census. Our central research question asks: how did household and family structures vary by ethnic group in Western versus Eastern Canada in 1901? The findings reflect the uneven tempo of immigration and Indigenous displacement across regions, offering new insights into the historical roots of well-documented ethnic differences in contemporary family dynamics (Smock and Schwartz, 2020).

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 Presented in Session P1. Families, Fertility, and the Life Course 1