Males as a Percentage of the Total Population (2006 Census)

At the time of the 2006 census, Canada was 48.95 per cent male. But do demographic, economic, and geographic factors play out across Canada to make some places more "male" or "female" than others? As shown on the map and in the table, they do. Canada's North is more male than its South.

The highest percentage of males is in Census Division 16, in northeastern Alberta's oil sands country, where almost 54 per cent of the population is male. The most female place in Canada is Saint John, New Brunswick, where only 47 percent of the population is male.

In Canada, the real "gender divide" is the country's North-South boundary.

Demographic and economic reasons both likely play a role in making the North more male than the South. And since more boys than girls are born in Canada every year, the fact that the North has a younger population (see Kids These Days) likely accounts for part of the difference. As well, during their working years, males are more likely than females to move to the North in search of jobs in male-dominated industries, such as diamond mining or the oil sands.

Source: The Conference Board of Canada.

Methodology

Data for "Total population by sex and age groups--100% data" and "Male, total" were exported from Statistics Canada's Profile of Census Divisions, National Level, 2006 Census (catalogue no. 94-581-XCB2006001) using Beyond 20/20 Professional Browser.

These data were imported into Microsoft Excel, where the percentage of the population that is male was calculated for every census division in Canada. The resulting table was imported into a geographic information system (ArcGIS) where it was classified as "50 per cent or less," "50-51 per cent," and "greater than 51 per cent." The data were mapped and Northern census divisions in the highest category were labelled.

The MAX and MIN functions in Excel were used to prepare the two tables illustrating the "most male" and "least male" census divisions in Canada.

About the Series

Here, the North is a bi-weekly series researched, written, and produced by The Conference Board of Canada's Centre for the North. The series is designed to illustrate similarities and differences--between Canada's North and South, and between Northern regions--in keeping with the Centre's mandate to provide policy-directed research to decision makers.

This issue of Here, the North was researched and written by Peter Wilson.