Howatson-Leo, Linda Earl, Louise Puderer, Henry Cunningham, Ron Bollman, Ray Rea, Willa
Abstract
Non-metropolitan areas in Canada are often simply referred as rural Canada, without enough attention paid to their inner differences. The Metropolitan Influence Zones (MIZ) conceptual framework allows us to divide non-metropolitan areas into No Metropolitan Influence Zone (No MIZ), Weak Metropolitan Influence Zone (Weak MIZ), and Moderate Metropolitan Influence Zone (Moderate MIZ), according to the commuting flows to and from metropolitan areas. Analyses on New Brunswick show that the nonmetropolitan population are economically disadvantaged overall compared to metropolitan population. However, there are substantial differences within nonmetropolitan areas. Population in the No Metropolitan Influence Zone do not appear to be the most disadvantaged economically. In so far as the No Metropolitan Zone may be regarded as the most rural, this casts doubt on the conventional wisdom regarding "rural" as the synonym of socio-economic disadvantage. In fact, the urban population in the No Metropolitan Influence Zone is shown to be the most disadvantaged economically. The pattern in Saskatchewan is quite different from New Brunswick. In general, median family income decreases, unemployment rate and incidence of low income families increase as the influence of metropolitan areas decreases. Together with the findings concerning New Brunswick, it is clear that non-metropolitan Canada is anything but homogeneous. More research is needed to bring out this diversity so that social policies can be better tailored to the needs of non-metropolitan Canadian population.
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