Impact of "ethnic mobility" on socio-economic conditions of Aboriginal peoples

Abstract

For the first time data from the1986 and 1996 censuses have been organized in an historical manner with a consistent set of definitions and geographies. Guimond (1999) has established that the Aboriginal population, both in terms of origin and identity, has grown rapidly and that an important component of that growth has come from personal changes in the ethnic affiliation. This finding begs the question: what are the characteristics of the people changing their affiliation? Using census data, this study will focus on the highest level of schooling variable for the populations reporting Aboriginal origins and Aboriginal identity and show how this characteristic is changing in a selected age cohort over the ten year period 1986-96.