Application of the United Nations Human Development Index to non-status First Nations in Canada, 2006 to 2016

On this page

• Why we did this
• What we did
• What we found
• What it means

Why we did this

The Human Development Index (HDI) has been published by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) since 1990. It provides a framework for examining countries’ progress on 3 components: health, income and education. Canada is among the highest ranking countries on the HDI with "very high" levels of human development. The previous HDI methodology^{Footnote 1} was used as a framework to examine the HDI scores of the non-status First Nations population in Canada, comparing the results to those of non-Indigenous Canadians between 2006 and 2016.

What we did

We adapted the 2018 UNDP HDI methodology for a Canadian context to compare the human development of non-status First Nations to non-Indigenous Canadians based on the 3 HDI components between 2006 and 2016:

• Health is measured by life expectancy at birth^{Footnote 2}
• Education is measured by the average years of schooling for those aged 25 and older and the percentage of the population aged 15 to 34 attending school^{Footnote 3}
• Income is measured by average (per capita) income for the entire population with and without income^{Footnote 3}

These indicators are combined to form an index that is scaled between 0 and 1.0. The component scores and national HDI score were scaled to allow for international comparisons, allowing the ranking of non-status First Nations to be compared with the 2018 rankings of Canada as a whole, as well as 189 other countries. Further comparisons to previous HDI scores or rankings cannot be made due to many changes in the UNDP calculation of the HDI, its components and available data sources.

What we found

While national HDI scores increased over the period, the gap in HDI scores between non-status First Nations and non-Indigenous Canadians remained stable (see Figure 1).

Overall HDI scores for non-status First Nations could be produced for Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia. The non-status First Nations population had lower HDI scores than non-Indigenous people in each of these provinces, with slightly smaller gaps in the province of Quebec than in the other provinces.

By all indicators, non-status First Nations scores increased only very slightly over the period, but so did the scores for non-Indigenous Canadians. As a result, the overall HDI gap between these groups was constant.

Overall HDI scores for non-status First Nations women remained lower than those of non-status First Nations men. This was due to lower incomes rather than life expectancy or education; measures on which women scored higher than men.

While Canada ranked 12th internationally in 2018, non-status First Nations would have ranked 35th among countries with "very high" human development.

Figure 1. Human Development Index Scores for Non-Status First Nations and non-Indigenous Canadians, 2006 and 2016.

Year	Non-status First Nations HDI score	Non-Indigenous Canadians HDI score
2006	0.77	0.84
2016	0.79	0.86

What it means

Overall, the results show progress in reducing the HDI scores gaps between non-status First Nations and non-Indigenous Canadians. However, they do point to the continuing importance of income differences. Future research should continue to investigate the changes of non-status First Nations incomes, with particular attention to gender disparities.

For more information

To obtain a PDF version of the full report, Cooke, M. (2021). Measuring the Well-Being of Non-Status First Nations: An application of the Human Development Index to Non-Status First Nations peoples in Canada, 2006–2016. Ottawa: Indigenous Services Canada, or for other inquiries, please e-mail aadnc.recherche-research.aandc@canada.ca.