Indigenous Earnings Convergence: Canada 1995 to 2020

We estimate Indigenous labour market disparity amongst Canadian-born workers over 1995-2020 and describe new facts about earnings patterns. We find dramatic convergence in earnings for Indigenous workers with earnings gaps shrinking by more than half, from 36 to 16 percent for Indigenous men and 16 to 6 percent for Indigenous women. We also explore heterogeneity across seven distinct Indigenous categories, defined by legal status, identity and ancestry. We see this convergence for Registered Indigenous workers living off-reserve, and for unregistered Indigenous workers who report First Nations or Metis identity and for workers who do not report Indigenous identity but do report Indigenous ancestry. However, we see much less convergence for Registered Indigenous workers living on reserve.