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Age Discrimination and the Employment Rights of Elderly Canadian Immigrants

It is important to emphasize that our objective was not to obtain a random sample of elderly immigrants from which to draw statistical inferences. Instead, potential respondents were sought on the basis of a number of criteria:

1. work experience: since our concern with employment rights, the principal target was individuals with past or current employment in Canada. We gathered a few comments from individuals who were self-employed or who had sought but were unable to obtain work in Canada.

2. age: in order to obtain the views of individuals who may have been or likely to be subject to mandatory retirement, we first sought to identify individuals at or past the normal age of retirement.

3. Province of residence: our principal concern was on obtaining the views of individuals in a province where a statutory definition of age limits protection from age discrimination for the elderly. Accordingly, we first sought interviews in Ontario and Saskatchewan. Subsequently, we deemed it useful to obtain the views of individuals on working past the normal age of retirement and thus conducted interviews in Manitoba where there are relatively few restrictions on the right to employment.

4. country of origin: in light of the extremely low average income and high incidence of low incomes among immigrants from southeast Asian countries, our primary target group was individuals from the Chinese-Canadian community. Other respondents were born in south Asia, Central America and Eritrea.
The survey instrument is attached.