• The potential contribution of Aboriginal Canadians to labour productivity annual
growth rate in Canada is up to 0.037 percentage point if all three 2001 gaps with non-
Aboriginal Canadians are eliminated by 2017. The potential contribution attributable
only to the elimination of the 2001 educational attainment gap is up to 0.016
percentage point per year.
Importance of Education
This section reviews the importance of education in improving labour market success,
income, productivity and other social indicators such as crime, health and poverty. The report
finds that in general people with higher educational attainment enjoy lower unemployment,
participate at a higher rate in the labour market, stand a higher chance of being employed and
earn greater employment income. The major divide is between people who finished high school
and those who did not. For example, the unemployment rate for persons in Canada in 2006 who
went to high school but did not graduate (12.3 per cent) was about double the rate of those whose
highest educational attainment was a high school diploma (6.2 per cent) and the latter‘s average
employment income was about $7,000 larger than the former group, a 63 per cent difference.
The report also firmly establishes that the returns to education are not solely private, but also
societal, as increased educational attainment generally reduces crime, improves health, and
potentially breaks the cycle of poverty.
A Portrait of Aboriginal Canadians
In 2001, the Aboriginal population made up 3.4 per cent of the Canadian population, with
1,066,500 individuals. This share was up from 3.1 per cent of the total population in 1996, due in
part to much higher fertility rates among Aboriginal Canadians than the rest of the population.
The increased tendency of Metis to self-identify also explains a significant proportion of the
increase. The Aboriginal population is also much younger than the average Canadian, with a
median age of only 24.7 years compared to 37.6 years in 2001.
Aboriginal Canadians have a much lower educational attainment than their non-
Aboriginal counterparts. In 2001, slightly over half (52.2 per cent) of Aboriginal Canadians had
completed high school, compared to 69.1 per cent of non-Aboriginal Canadians. However, the
gap is gradually closing. Between 1996 and 2001, the gap between the two groups in terms of
high school completion closed by 4.5 percentage points.
A university degree was the educational category in which Aboriginal Canadians were
most underrepresented compared to other Canadians. In 2001, only 8.9 per cent of Aboriginal
individuals held a university degree, compared to 21.8 per cent of the non-Aboriginal population,
a gap of 12.8 percentage points. While the share of Aboriginal Canadians with a university
degree increased between 1996 and 2001 (from 7.8 per cent to 8.9 per cent), so did the share of
non-Aboriginal Canadians (from 20.0 to 21.8 per cent), so the gap actually increase from 12.2
points in 1996 to 12.9 points in 2001.
With educational attainment being lower for Aboriginal Canadians, one can expect their
average income to be lower than non-Aboriginals. However, even given a certain level of