Profile of Our Membership

In mid 2017 we started collecting demographic, education and professional information about our Members, as part of our New Member Sign-up Process. The objective of this data collection effort is to get a better understanding of our Members so that we may devise and deliver services that are of value to them.

This article discusses some of the statistics we collect, how we get them, the caveats behind the numbers, and an interpretation of their meaning.

Gender

At first glance, these figures look a bit unbalanced, as obviously the ideal ratio would be 50/50, not just for Hispanotech but for society as a whole. However it is worth noting that female representation in Canada's STEM sectors is only 23% (up from 22% in 2016), so in comparison our female Members are in fact better represented in the Hispanotech population, and the trend is also consistently upwards (up from 40% in January 2019).

Our questionnaire does include the options for Other (and Undisclosed), however so far only a very small number of people have chosen it.

Education Level

The high levels of education of our Members is to be expected, as Hispanotech is a network of immigrant professionals in STEAM fields. And to some extent it is also a reflection of Canada's immigration policies and selection process. These percentages have been very stable over the last few years.

Age

As a generalization, this could be interpreted as half of our Members are already established, which translates into a healthy population of Mentors and connections for the half that are in process of getting established. The trend has been for the % of younger Members to increase (up from 44% in January 2019), which may just be due to the type of programs and services we offer.

To avoid privacy or personal concerns, our "Year Born" question is formulated in very broad ranges, following the concept of generations, namely:

In our questionnaire we lump the last 3 generations as 1900-1964, and sometimes refer to them as The Wise Ones.

Year Landed in Canada

The percentage of newcomers in our membership has been steadily increasing (from 27% four years ago), which is largely a reflection of our mission to help Latino professionals enter the job market when they first land as immigrants in Canada.

It may also be a reflection of changes in the composition of our Board of Directors to better represent our target membership. Six years ago our Board was all male, all with gray-hair (or no hair!). Our Board has evolved over the years and today has several millenial Directors, and is 60% female. This has positively reflected in the type of activities we do and the people we attract, and in the dynamism of our Directors and Volunteers.

It is also worth noting that the vast majority of Hispanotech Members remain engaged well after they have established themselves in Canada, and give back to the community as Mentors to the new newcomers, Volunteering in our Committees, or as Directors and Advisors.

Region & Country of Origin

Our membership hails from far and wide, representing 47 different countries and 5 continents:

The most represented countries are:

Over the decades, it has been typical for immigrants to reflect the countries that are experiencing political or economic upheaval. For example, representation from Venezuela and Brazil has grown substantially in the last 6 years.

You can also view a time-lapse visualization of the growth of Hispanotech's membership over the last 5 years based on country of origin.