Aboriginal People in Manitoba 2000Chapter 1 : Demographics |
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Age Distribution in Manitoba
The Aboriginal population in Manitoba is considerably younger than the total population. 37.7% of Aboriginal people are under the age of 15, as compared to just 20.1% of the non-Aboriginal population. 64.5% of Aboriginal people are under 30, compared to 40% of the non-Aboriginal population. On the other hand, only 3.3% of Aboriginal people are 65 or older, compared to 14.2% of non-Aboriginal people.
The age distribution of the Aboriginal population has important consequences for the demands for certain social services, now and in the future. Most obvious, close to one third of Aboriginal people are in the primary and secondary school age population, compared to less than one fifth of non-Aboriginal people. There is also greater potential demand for post-secondary education and vocational training, a demand that will increase dramatically as the large cohort of Aboriginal children aged 0-14 grows into the working age population. Finally, the labour market will need to absorb increasing numbers of Aboriginal youth over the next few decades, or social institutions will need to cope with the consequences of a failure to absorb these youth into the labour market.
While 11.7% of Manitobans of all age groups are Aboriginal, fully 20% of children aged 0-14 are Aboriginal. In many school districts in the north and in several school catchment areas in central Winnipeg, a majority of school age children are Aboriginal, even where Aboriginal people are a minority overall.
Approximately 40% of school age Aboriginal people live on reserve, where funding is provided through the federal Department of Indian Affairs. Education for the remaining 60% is provincially and municipally funded. In off-reserve and urban settings, about one half of Aboriginal school age children are Status and one half are Metis, Non-Status or Inuit.
Because one fifth of Manitoba children aged 0-14 in 1996 were Aboriginal, it follows that one in five persons reaching working age in 2000-2015 will be Aboriginal. The percentage will rise each year. Some estimates are as high as one in three or four by 2015.
The age structure of the Aboriginal population has a number of important independent effects on the socioeconomic conditions faced by Aboriginal people. Only 32% of Aboriginal people are in their prime earning years (age 30-65), compared to 46% of non-Aboriginal people. These 32% are outnumbered by the children aged 0-14 that they support, whereas non-Aboriginal people in this age group outnumber the children aged 0-14 more than two to one. Larger Aboriginal families mean that even if Aboriginal workers had employment prospects and incomes equivalent to non-Aboriginal workers, their standards of living would still be lower and their housing more crowded.
There are differences in the age structure of the different Aboriginal groups. 31.3% of Metis-identity people are aged 0-14, compared to 40.7% of Status Indians and 41.9% of non-Status Indians. By the same token, many more Metis people are in the age 30-65 group: 37.5%, compared to 29.7% of Status Indians and 27.9% of non-Status Indians. In age distribution, as in many socioeconomic variables, Metis occupy a middle position between Status Indians and the non-Aboriginal population.
There is little difference in the age structure of Status populations on or off-reserve. In both settings, 40.7% of the population is aged 0-14. Off-reserve, there are slightly more people aged 30-65, and therefore slightly fewer people aged 15-29 or 65 plus. This is not so much the result of working age people seeking employment off-reserve, as it is due to disproportionate numbers of adult women living off-reserve. 27.2% of Status women living off-reserve are aged 30-49, as compared to 21.4% of Status women on reserves in this age category. The proportions of males in this age group living on and off reserves are identical.
