Overall Quality of Life

This map shows the overall quality of life, representing the combined attributes of the physical, social and economic environments. Eleven domains and their respective indicators are used to assess the important aspects of quality of life.

Domains or Aspects of Overall Quality of Life

Domains are defined as the important aspects of life important to overall quality of life.

Housing

• Percentage of population living in housing requiring major repairs (inverse)
• Average number of persons per room (inverse)
• Percentage of household incomes with owner’s major payments (or gross rent) for shelter being greater than or equal to 30 per cent of household income (inverse)

Accessibility to Services

• Distance from centre of census subdivision to nearest hospital (inverse)

Environmental Quality

• Density of dwellings requiring major repairs (inverse)
• Air quality: measured as total pollutant particulate matter emissions (inverse)

Household Finances

• Average owner’s major payments (inverse)
• Percentage of income from government transfer payments (inverse)
• Ratio of percentage of households in lowest income category to that of households in highest income category (inverse)
• Percentage incidence of low income families (inverse)

Employment/Paid Work

• Unemployment rate (inverse)
• Ratio of individuals working part year, part time to individuals working full year, full time (inverse)
• Average employment income (direct)

Social Opportunity and Mobility

• Ratio of female median income to male median income (direct)
• Male participation rate in workforce (direct)
• Female participation rate in workforce (direct)

Participation in Democratic Processes

• Percentage of the population that participated in the 1997 elections (direct)

Social Stability

• Ratio of percentage of population living in owned housing to percentage of population living in rental housing (direct)
• Percentage of population living at the same address they lived at five years earlier (direct)
• Percentage of population living at a different address than the one they lived at five years earlier (inverse)

Education

• Ratio of percentage of population with trade/college or university education to percentage of population with less than Grade 9 education (direct)

Access to Health Resources

• Number of physician specialists per thousand people (direct)
• Number of family physicians per thousand people (direct)

Leisure and Recreation

• Number of leisure-related commercial activities per thousand people (direct)
• Number of libraries per thousand people (direct)

Methodology

Five classes have been used to map the overall quality of life: low, fair, moderate, good and high. ‘Moderate’ quality of life can be seen as the average, whereas ‘low’ is well below the average and ‘high’ is well above average. A ‘low’ classification for a community implies that it scored low on all indicators of the overall quality of life; conversely, a community with a ‘high’ classification more than likely scored above average on all indicators. The score for each community (or census subdivision) was calculated using a methodology called the standard score additive method. In this method, the data are standardized. The resulting values, called z-scores, were then added or subtracted, according to the direction of the indicator. The indicator direction is either inverse (–) or direct (+), where inverse indicates that a high value implies a lower quality of life; conversely, a high value for a direct relationship implies a higher quality of life. The map showing overall quality of life was derived from the sum of the total scores from each environment.

Refer to the Data and Mapping Notes section for further details on the methodology and the rationale for choosing the indicators listed above to map the overall quality of life.

Geographic Description

The map shows the geographic variation in the overall quality of life and of the eleven domains. Only communities with data for all three environments (social, economic, physical) were mapped. The geographic distribution of overall quality of life shows a wide variation across Canada. The provinces of western Canada generally score moderate to high in clusters around the larger metropolitan areas (such as Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, Saskatoon, Winnipeg and Victoria). In Ontario and Quebec, the distribution shows that the rapidly growing urban areas surrounding Toronto (Oakville) and Ottawa (Nepean) score good to high, as compared to the older municipality boundaries of Toronto and Ottawa. This pattern is illustrated in Figure 1 for southern Ontario.

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Figure 1. Distribution of Overall Quality of Life in Southern Ontario

In eastern Canada, the larger and older major metropolitan areas, such as Halifax, Nova Scotia and Moncton, New Brunswick, generally score good to high, compared to most other areas, which score moderate to low. The few exceptions (for example, Antigonish, Nova Scotia) to this trend are shown in Figure 2.

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Figure 2. Distribution of Overall Quality of Life in the Maritime Provinces

Use the various zoom mapping tools, found at the top of the map, to zoom into locations across Canada to compare overall quality of life from region to region, city to city or town to town. Use the Get Statistics tool to view the data used to derive the index value for each community. Alternatively, turn on one of the domain thematic map layers to view the distribution of each domain.

For another perspective on the overall quality of life, please request the following .xls file ovec_e.xls from Contact Us to view the results of the metropolitan influence zone classification, used to classify municipalities (census subdivisions) that lie outside census metropolitan areas (CMAs) and census agglomerations (CAs) according to the degree of influence that CMA/CAs have on them. This classification precedes standardization of the data, prior to the addition of the z-scores. In this table, only communities (census subdivisions) with the same classification are compared to one another. Refer to the Data and Mapping Notes section for more information on the classification methodology.

• Quality of Life: Economic Environment Index Map | Read about this map
• Quality of Life: Social Environment Index Map | Read about this map
• Quality of Life: Physical Environment Index Map | Read about this map
• Quality of Life in Canada – A Citizens’ Report Card Map | Read about this map
• Metropolitan Influenced Zones (MIZ) Map | Read about this map

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• Quality of Life
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