Overview

Abstract (English)

Québec is the second largest Canadian province and the only one with a French speaking majority. The province has a little under 8 million people, 79% of which having French as its mother tongue. Like many western countries, Québec is facing, in the coming decades, declining, and perhaps negative, natural increase and rapid population aging. Partly in response to those demographic challenges, Québec has increased its immigration intakes. The composition of international immigration is increasingly diversified in its ethnocultural and linguistic characteristics. According to the 2006 census, 81 % of the Québec population declared French as the language most often spoken at home, but this proportion reached 88 % among its native born population and as low as 31 % among its immigrant population. New immigrants have to learn either one or both of French (official language at the provincial and federal level) and English (official language at the federal level) to fully integrate to the host society. In this context, their linguistic choices will have an increasing impact on the linguistic composition of Québec’s population, which is an important political issue. The aim of this paper is to build a dynamic model based on the Modgen microsimulation programming language. The model will include a module assessing language shifts over life course. Linguistic composition of the future Québec population will be projected up to 2051 for different scenarios. Stable populations will also be derived for all scenarios.

Abstract (French)

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