Measurement of Labour Market Attachment in the Northern Canadian Context: Conceptual and Methodological Issues

• Published in: Interventions économiques
• Main Author: Delic, Senada
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: French
• Published: Association d’Économie Politique 2013
• Subjects: centres urbains hors réserve; identité autochtone; Inuit Nunangat; mesure de la participation au marché du travail; population en âge de travailler; recherche d'emploi; Aboriginal identity working age population; job search criterion; measurement of labour market attachment; off-reserve urban centers; demo; eco; Canada; inuit
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.4000/interventionseconomiques.1969; http://journals.openedition.org/interventionseconomiques/1969

Strong attachment to the labour market is widely recognized as a source of economic empowerment and a crucial pathway out of poverty and as such is attentively measured and closely monitored. The conventional approach to the measurement of labour market attachment in Canada is based on a priori assumptions that specify what constitutes the labour market activity and inactivity. This paper takes a critical look into the conceptual and methodological basis behind this conventional approach and highlights some important issues related to its application to the northern Canadian context, focusing in particular on living conditions in Inuit communities and comparing them to those in southern large urban centers. The paper calls for an empirical examination of these issues, arguing that the dividing line between economically active and marginally attached subgroups of working age population residing in the northern Inuit communities is likely to be more blurred than that of self-identifying Aboriginal population residing off-reserve in large urban centers due to significant differences in the institutional arrangements between northern and southern labour markets. Un fort attachement au marché du travail est largement reconnu comme une source d'émancipation économique et une voie essentielle pour sortir de la pauvreté et de ce fait, cette mesure est surveillée de près. L'approche classique de la mesure de la participation au marché du travail employée au Canada est fondée sur des hypothèses a priori qui spécifient ce qui constitue l'activité sur le marché du travail et l'inactivité. Cet article jette un regard critique sur les fondements conceptuels et méthodologiques de cette approche conventionnelle et met en évidence certaines questions importantes liées à son application au contexte du Nord canadien, en se concentrant en particulier sur les conditions de vie dans les collectivités inuit et en les comparant à la réalité des grands centres urbains du Sud . L’article appelle à un examen empirique de ces questions, ...