Abstract
The relationship between cultural attachment and mental wellbeing among Canada’s Indigenous population is explored with data from the 2012 Aboriginal Peoples Survey. Cultural attachment is assessed by involvement in traditional activities and Indigenous language. Ordered probit models are used to determine the factors associated with wellbeing. The results suggest an urban–rural divide with cultural attachment associated with higher levels of wellbeing for Indigenous Canadians living in rural areas. The results are expected to be of interest to policy makers in countries with significant Indigenous populations whom tend to have higher frequencies of psychological wellbeing issues, such as Canada, Australia and the United States.
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Notes
The ordered logit model is also suitable for analysing an ordered categorical dependent variable. The ordered logit and probit models differ in their assumptions about the distribution of errors, with the ordered logit model based on a logistic distribution while the ordered probit is based on a standard normal distribution.
The sample for the Aboriginal Peoples Survey is drawn from the 2011 National Household Survey (NHS) according to those reporting Indigenous ancestry. The pubic use micro-file, used for this study, contains 758 variables, providing data from various sections of the APS questionnaires as well as from the 2011 Census.
The probabilities of psychological wellbeing in each of the five categories can be calculated using the estimated threshold values and the cumulative normal distribution function, as per the methodology set out in Yang and Raehsler (2005).
Note that the marginal effects for each variable sum to zero, by definition, across the five income categories.
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Hossain, B., Lamb, L. Cultural Attachment and Wellbeing Among Canada’s Indigenous People: A Rural Urban Divide. J Happiness Stud 21, 1303–1324 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-019-00132-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-019-00132-8