Rural Saskatchewan Profile:

A Ten-year Census Analysis (1991-2001)

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Executive Summary

Introduction

The Government of Canada's Rural Secretariat initiated this report to advance its goal in improving government and citizen understanding of rural conditions in the province of Saskatchewan. This report benchmarks major socio‑economic structures and trends regarding rural areas. The overall objective is to help improve policy with respect to the economic and social conditions found in rural Saskatchewan.

Research Methods

Two major classification systems form the core analysis in this report. First, the Metropolitan Influenced Zone (MIZ) system, developed by McNiven et al. (2000), is used to make distinctions within rural and small town Saskatchewan. The four MIZ categories are Strong, Moderate, Weak, and No MIZ, with each progressively resembling rurality. Second, a basic difference between urban centres and rural/small town zones is also presented to capture overall variance between the two sectors of the province. In total, 20 indicators from Statistics Canada's 2001, 1996, and 1991 Censuses of Population have been calculated and analyzed for each of the four degrees of rurality, for rural and small town Saskatchewan as a whole, and for its urban centres.

Major Findings

Population Indicators

Rural and small town populations comprise 42.3% of the total Saskatchewan population. Between 1991 and 1996, the rural population contracted by 2.0% and by 3.5% between 1996 and 2001. In contrast, the urban population grew by 1.8 and 0.6% between 1991 and 1996 and between 1996 and 2001, respectively. In the most recent inter-census period, population change varied within rural and small town zones, with the most heavily populated Weak MIZ zones experiencing the greatest population decline (4.4%), followed by the least populated No MIZ (3.5%) and Moderate MIZ (2.6%) zones. Strong MIZ zones, on the other hand, increased in population size by 0.8%.

Saskatchewan's rural population comprises a much larger share of the total population than is the case Canada-wide (42.3% compared to 20.6%). Both Canada's and Saskatchewan's rural population contracted between 1996 and 2001, although to a greater extent in Saskatchewan (3.5%) than in Canada (0.4%).

Compared to urban Saskatchewan, rural and small town zones have a more polarized age structure, with slightly higher proportions falling within the lowest (children) and highest (seniors) age categories. Between 1991 and 2001, rural and small town populations aged slightly less rapidly than did the province's urban population. Rural areas further exhibited a slightly smaller decline in the share of the population comprised of children and a decline in the share of the population that were seniors (compared to an increase in urban Saskatchewan). Nonetheless, Strong MIZ populations aged the most rapidly in the province, with the share of the population comprised of children declining over this ten year period by 4.1%, and the share comprised of seniors increasing by 1.6%.

While rural and small town Saskatchewan has a greater share of its population comprised of Aboriginal individuals than does urban Saskatchewan, greater variation exists within rural zones. For example, just one‑in‑ten Strong MIZ residents are of Aboriginal identity, compared to almost one in three No MIZ residents. Moderate and Weak MIZ zones fall between these two extremes, with, respectively, 18.9% and 14.7% of their populations comprised of Aboriginal individuals. Aboriginal representation increased in every geographic zone between 1996 and 2001, with the largest percentage increase occurring in No MIZ zones (3.9%).

Economic, Education, Social and Health Care Indicators

Most of the results illustrate a great deal of variation in the economic, education, social, and health care situations within rural and small town Saskatchewan. While differences between the urban and rural population are apparent, there is often greater variation among the four MIZ categories. Strong MIZ zones typically stand out as being most similar to the more advantaged urban centres, and for some indicators, actually exceed urban centres. No MIZ zones consistently rank as the least advantaged zones in rural Saskatchewan.

The use of three consecutive census years permits a review of changes over the decade of the 1990s in rural Saskatchewan. Most apparent in this review of the indicators is the continuation of the relative disadvantage of rural zones over time, when compared to urban Saskatchewan, and the continuing advantage of Strong MIZ zones compared to No MIZ zones. The gap in economic well‑being between Strong and No MIZ zones, moreover, continued to increase, as No MIZ zones were less likely to have benefited from economic improvement characterizing the rest of the province after 1996.

Examples of this pattern include the following:

Economic Indicators

• High labour force participation and low unemployment rates are consistently found across time in Strong MIZ zones, while low labour force participation (LFP)and high unemployment rates are consistently found in the Aboriginal‑intensive No MIZ zones. Between 1996 and 2001, the Strong MIZ LFP rate increased and the unemployment rate declined. No MIZ rates, in contrast, did not change.


• Personal median incomes were the highest in urban centres and Strong MIZ zones and the lowest in No MIZ zones. No MIZ exhibited the largest decline in income in the province between 1996 and 2001, while Strong MIZ income values increased.


• Populations of No MIZ zones received a greater proportion of their income as social transfer than populations of any other geographic zone in 2001. Like their Strong MIZ counterparts, however, populations of these economically disadvantaged zones were less likely to rely on this form of income in 2001 than in 1996.

Education Indicators

• The lowest level of educational attainment is observed in No MIZ zones where 47.5% of the population of at least 20 years of age had not completed high school as recently as 2001. Strong MIZ populations were the most likely of all rural and small town populations to have a university degree (7.3%), although they were still much less likely than urban population to have this level of education (16.2%).


• In Strong MIZ zones resided not only the highest number of education providers per 1,000 population of the rural zones (18.9 per 1,000 population), but they experienced the largest per 1,000 population increase in providers between 1996 and 2001.

Social Indicators

• No MIZ zones have the highest incidence of, and experienced the greatest over time growth in lone‑parent families (from 9.2% in 1991 to 14.9% in 2001), while the lowest rates were observed in Strong MIZ zones (8.5%).


• Despite having housing values that are just two‑thirds of the value of Strong MIZ housing, No MIZ residents are almost as likely as those in Strong MIZ to spend a significant portion of their income on shelter costs (9.6% compared to 11.4%).

Health Care Indicators

• In Rural and small town Saskatchewan resided lower numbers of health care providers per 1,000 population than in urban regions. In No MIZ zones resided by far the fewest number of health care providers per 1,000 population in the province (19.7 per 1,000 population).

Rural and small town Saskatchewanites are clearly not equivalent to their urban counterparts with respect to economic prosperity, social well‑being, educational attainment and access to health care. The differences that exist within rural and small town Saskatchewan are, however, equally apparent. Despite modest improvements on some indicators in the most disadvantaged No MIZ zones, populations of these zones continued as recently as 2001 to experience conditions of disadvantage relative to the rest of Saskatchewan. The MIZ classification consistently demonstrates that resources and support are increasingly needed in regions that are the least integrated with urban centres, and that No MIZ zones are in a relative position of greater need in terms of supporting policy and programs than are their more integrated Strong MIZ counterparts.

For a pdf of the entire document, please click here.

You can also receive a Word document or get additional information by contacting:

Manager of Research and Analysis
Rural Research and Analysis Unit
Rural Secretariat, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
Tower 7, 6th Floor
1341 Baseline Road
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0C5
Tel: 888 781-2222
E-mail: rs@agr.gc.ca

Catalogue No.: A114-13/4-2001E-HTML
ISBN: 0-662-40304-5
©Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada, 2005

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