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Indigenous Families and Households in Canada: A Tale of Statistical Disadvantage

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Abstract

In this research note, we review available concepts and statistics for Indigenous families and households. We show how there is currently a knowledge gap concerning the composition of Indigenous households and their evolution over time, which is essential to improve our understanding of their social organization and its relationship to well-being, and thus to develop appropriate policies.

Résumé

Dans cette note de recherche, nous passons en revue les concepts et les statistiques disponibles pour les familles et les ménages autochtones. Nous montrons comment il existe actuellement un manque de connaissances concernant la composition des ménages autochtones et leur évolution dans le temps, ce qui est. essentiel pour améliorer notre comprehension de leur organisation sociale et de sa relation avec le bien-être, et ainsi développer des politiques appropriées.

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Notes

  1. There are three distinctive groups of Indigenous peoples recognized by the 1982 Constitution Act of Canada: First Nations, who are the descendants of the precolonial inhabitants of North America; Métis, who are the descendants of early unions between First Nations and Europeans settlers in the nineteenth century; and Inuit peoples, who largely inhabit the Canadian Artic territories. Until 2015, “Aboriginal” was the official terms used in Canada to refer to these three groups. The terms “Indian” was historically used to refer to First Nations and still holds legal significant for this group because of the 1876 Indian Act.

  2. Indigenous identity is derived from data collected in three census questions: Indigenous group (with options First Nations, Métis, Inuit); registered or treaty Indian status (with options yes or no); and membership in a First Nation or Indian band (with options yes or no). These questions are included in the long-form census questionnaire, which is administered to a subset of households (one in five prior to 2016, and one in four in 2016)—the main exception being Indian reserves and Northern communities, where the long-form census questionnaire is administered to all households. In 2011, the National Household Survey replaced the long-form census questionnaire and was used to measure Indigenous identity.

  3. Available at: https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/English/census96/data/tables (accessed on March 13, 2020).

  4. Prior to 1996, the concept of ancestry, rather than identity, was used to enumerate Indigenous peoples in the census. Ancestry refers to the ethnic or cultural group of a person’s ancestors, but it does not mean that the person identifies with the Indigenous group to which his/her ancestors belonged.

  5. As indicated earlier, online census tabulations about census family status for children and individuals are not available for 2006. We thus exploited the public-use census microdata file, described in detail in the next section.

  6. Because of confidentiality, the original (or “master”) census datasets are available only upon special request through one of Statistics Canada’s secure Research Data Centers. A public-use version of census datasets is available through university libraries but has a more limited number of variables and observations than the master file, and geographic identifiers are restricted to provinces/territories and metropolitan areas. For instance, the individuals’ file of the 2016 Census Public Use Microdata File (or PUMF) contains a 2.7% sample of anonymous responses from the census questionnaire, and 123 variables. Self-reported Aboriginal identity has been included in the PUMF starting with the 1996 Census, but limitedly to the individuals’ file until 2006.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank the participants to the 2017 CIQSS Workshop on Available Data and Indicators about Indigenous Peoples, the 2018 Annual Meeting of the Association de démographes du Québec, the 2019 Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America, and two anonymous reviewers for their feedback on earlier versions of this manuscript.

Funding

This study was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, grant # 430-2018-0796.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Université de Montréal, Montréal, Canada

    Simona Bignami-Van Assche & Charles-Olivier Simard

Authors
  1. Simona Bignami-Van Assche
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  2. Charles-Olivier Simard
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Simona Bignami-Van Assche.

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Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Appendix. Available relationship types in the 2011 NHS household roster

Appendix. Available relationship types in the 2011 NHS household roster

  1. 1.

    Household informant (“Person 1”)

    • Person 1

  2. 2.

    Partner/Spouse (“Person 2”)

    • Person 1’s opposite-sex married spouse

    • Person 1’s opposite-sex common-law partner

    • Person 1’s same-sex married spouse

    • Person 1’s same-sex common-law partner

  3. 3.

    Child of Person 1 and/or Person 2

    • Son or daughter of Person 1 and Person 2

    • Son or daughter of Person 1 only

    • Son or daughter of Person 2 only

  4. 4.

    Parent/step-parent

    • Father or mother of Person 1

    • Step-father/mother

    • Father/mother’s opposite-sex common-law partner

    • Father/mother’s same-sex married spouse

    • Father/mother’s same-sex common-law partner

  5. 5.

    Son/daughter-in-law

    • Son or daughter-in-law

    • Son/daughter’s opposite-sex common-law partner

    • Son/daughter’s same-sex married spouse

    • Son/daughter’s same-sex common-law partner

    • Person 1’s step-son/daughter’s opposite-sex married spouse

    • Person 1’s step-son/daughter’s opposite-sex common-law partner

    • Person 1’s step-son/daughter’s same-sex married spouse

    • Person 1’s step-son/daughter’s same-sex common-law partner

  6. 6.

    Parent-in-law

    • Father or mother-in-law of Person 1

    • Father/mother-in-law’s opposite-sex common-law partner

    • Father/mother-in-law’s same-sex married spouse

    • Father/mother-in-law’s same-sex common-law partner

  7. 7.

    (Great)Grandchild

    • Grandchild of Person 1

    • Great grandchild

  8. 8.

    Extended family

    • Grandparent of Person 1

    • Brother or sister of Person 1

    • Brother or sister-in-law of Person 1

    • Other relative of person 1

    • Other relative’s opposite-sex married spouse

    • Other relative’s opposite-sex common-law partner

    • Other relative’s son or daughter

    • Other relative’s step-son/daughter

    • Other relative’s grandchild

    • Cousin

    • Nephew/niece

    • Uncle/aunt

    • Grandchild’s opposite-sex married spouse

    • Cousin’s son/daughter

    • Nephew or niece’s son/daughter

    • Brother/sister’s opposite-sex common-law partner

    • Grandparent’s opposite-sex common-law partner

    • Grandchild’s opposite-sex common-law partner

    • Brother/sister-in-law’s opposite-sex common-law partner

    • Grandchild’s same-sex married spouse

    • Grandparent’s same-sex married spouse

    • Brother/sister’s same-sex married spouse

    • Brother/sister-in-law’s same-sex married spouse

    • Other relative’s same-sex married spouse

    • Grandchild’s same-sex common-law partner

    • Grandparent’s same-sex common-law partner

    • Brother/sister’s same-sex common-law partner

    • Brother/sister-in-law’s same-sex common-law partner

    • Other relative’s same-sex common-law partner

  9. 9.

    Foster child

  10. 10.

    Unrelated

    • Roommate/lodger

    • Roommate/lodger’s opposite-42 sex married spouse

    • Roommate/lodger’s opposite-sex common-law partner

    • Roommate/lodger’s son or daughter

    • Roommate/lodger’s step-son/daughter

    • Roommate/lodger’s grandchild

    • Roommate/lodger’s same-sex common-law partner

    • Roommate/lodger’s same-sex married spouse

    • Owner or manager

    • Owner/manager’s opposite-sex married spouse

    • Owner/manager’s opposite-sex common-law partner

    • Owner/manager’s son/daughter

    • Owner/manager’s step-son/daughter

    • Owner/manager’s grandchild

    • Owner/manager’s same-sex common-law partner

    • Owner/manager’s same-sex married spouse

    • Employee

    • Employee’s opposite-sex married spouse

    • Employee’s opposite-sex common-law partner

    • Employee’s son or daughter

    • Employee’s step-son/daughter

    • Employee’s grandchild

    • Employee’s same-sex common-law partner

    • Employee’s same-sex married spouse

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Assche, S.BV., Simard, CO. Indigenous Families and Households in Canada: A Tale of Statistical Disadvantage. Can. Stud. Popul. 47, 119–130 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42650-020-00028-6

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