Quality of early-career employment for Indigenous graduates with a bachelor’s degree

Press Release

June 24, 2024

From 2010 to 2018, 1,624,560 people in Canada earned a bachelor’s degree. Of these, 42,070 were Indigenous.

Indigenous people represented 3% of all bachelor’s degree holders, while they represented 5% of the Canadian population aged 25 to 34 in 2021.

	percent
	People who earned a bachelor’s degree between 2010 and 2018	Canadian population aged 25 to 34 in 2021
Indigenous	3	5
Non-Indigenous	97	95

First Nations and Métis represented the vast majority of Indigenous bachelor’s degree holders, while Inuit represented a small proportion.

Distribution of Indigenous bachelor’s degree holders, by Indigenous identity, 2010 to 2018	percent
First Nations	47.6
Métis	47.3
Inuit	1.5
Other	3.5

Based on the results for three quality of employment indicators, two years after graduating^{Note 1}…

First Nations bachelor’s degree holders often had lower outcomes than their non-Indigenous counterparts
Métis graduates had similar or better outcomes than non-Indigenous bachelor’s degree holders

	Average employment income (2020 constant dollars)	percent
	Average employment income (2020 constant dollars)	Unionization rate	Employer pension plan coverage rate
Women
First Nations	$50,400	46	45
Métis	$54,800	64	65
Non-Indigenous	$50,900	55	59
Men
First Nations	$55,600	34	46
Métis	$59,400	43	55
Non-Indigenous	$58,100	33	47

Source: Sylvie Brunet, Liliana Corak and Diane Galarneau, 2024, “Early career quality of employment of Indigenous graduates with a bachelor’s degree, 2010 to 2018 cohorts,” Education, learning and training Research Paper Series, Statistics Canada Catalogue no. 81-595-M.

Notes