It comes as no surprise that immigrants will fuel Canada’s growth for decades to come as evidenced by the latest census results.

The experts predict only one-third of Canada’s growth is due to fertility and that by that by 2031, immigration will account for more than 80 per cent of Canada’s overall population growth.

And as Canada grows to become more ethnoculturally diverse, there will be a greater opportunity for individuals to form conjugal relationships with someone from a different ethnocultural background, the experts predict.

Vancouver already leads the way when it comes to mixed-race unions in Canada with Toronto and Calgary close behind.

Just as the number crunchers were painting a portrait of Canada, a British study has delved into the subject of mixed race unions saying human beings find more attractive the faces of races other than theirs. 

White men preferred Asian women, while white women tend to go for black males, said the study by scientists from the department of psychology at Cardiff University.

They discovered that in order of preference, white women went for black males, followed by whites and then Asians. 

White men, on the other hand, went for Asian women, followed by white, then black.

At the same time more white men also marry East Asian women compared to Asian men marrying white women.

The researchers claim to have discovered a reason behind marked differences in patterns of mixed marriages – and it’s all rooted in the perceived attractiveness of the face.

The study, involving 40 undergraduate students, collated ratings of attractiveness of faces of 600 opposite-sex faces categorised by their race – black, white and Asian.

The students, aged between 18 and 30, were also of these three ethnicities.

The results, based on a similar experiment template based on a sample of 1,025 black, white and mixed-race faces, appeared to confirm that people whose genetic backgrounds are more diverse are, on average, perceived as more attractive than those whose backgrounds are less diverse.

In the latest research, academics devised and tested a mathematical formula of marriage behaviour on the back of the attractiveness data from the student sample, which produced the same patterns of mixed-race marriages found in government records.

The model also suggested that those taking part in mixed-race marriages are, on average, more attractive than those in same-race marriages.

The English study is similar to what we are seeing here in Canadian society, said a dating website owner in Vancouver.

“We are seeing more and more requests by men wanting to date Asian women,” she said.

In Canada, our census show that mixed unions are forming at unprecedented rates.

According to the 2006 Census, 3.9% of the 7,482,800 couples in Canada were mixed unions. Between 2001 and 2006, mixed unions grew at a rapid pace (33%), more than five times the growth for all couples (6.0%). 

Japanese in Canada had the highest proportion marrying or partnering outside of their visible minority group, as shown in the 2006 Census. 

Indeed, about three-quarters (75%) of the 29,700 couples where at least one person in the couple was Japanese involved pairings with a non-Japanese person. As was noted in earlier research, this high proportion may be at least partially due to the long duration of residence for many Japanese in Canada, as well as the low overall number of Japanese, which could increase interaction with persons outside of their group.

Latin Americans (47%) and Blacks (41%) followed Japanese with the highest proportions of couples involving out-group pairings. 

About one-third of couples involving a Filipino (33%) were married or living common-law outside their visible minority group.

The proportions of mixed unions among Southeast Asians (31%), Arabs or West Asians (25%) or Koreans (19%) ranked somewhat in the middle of all visible minority groups.

Filipino, Korean, Southeast Asian, Japanese, Chinese or Latin American women in couples accounted for a higher proportion of spouses or partners in mixed unions than did men from these visible minority groups. 

There were more than three times as many married or partnered Filipino women in mixed unions (28%) as there were Filipino men (9%). For Japanese, nearly two-thirds of Japanese women in couples were in mixed unions while this was the case for over one-half (52%) of men from this visible minority group

The labour force status of persons in mixed union couples is related to these higher education levels.

A higher percentage of spouses or partners in mixed unions were employed (77%) compared to their counterparts in non-mixed couples (67%).

Additionally, 19% of persons in mixed couples did not participate in the labour market compared with 30% of persons in non-mixed couples. Higher education and labour market participation rates were also linked to higher incomes for mixed union couples.