Cultural Workforce Participation and Income for Racialized Cultural Workers
As of the 2016 census, the Ottawa-Gatineau CMA was home to 280,985 residents who identify as belonging to one or more group that Statistics Canada refers to as “visible minorities” (note 1). This represented approximately 22% of the local population.
In Ottawa-Gatineau, the local workforce was broadly reflective of local racial diversity, with visible minorities making up approximately 20% of Ottawa-Gatineau’s culture workforce, which was similar to the visible minority share of the overall workforce. However, when removing the culture occupations that likely contain both culture and non-culture work, the visible minority share of this workforce was only about 14% in Ottawa-Gatineau in 2016 (note 2).
Visible Minorities in the Culture Workforce, Ottawa-Gatineau, 2016 (%)
Racialized cultural workers and income
In 2015 (note 3), workers in culture occupations belonging to one or more visible minority group had a lower average employment income than other cultural workers in each of the six largest CMAs except Ottawa-Gatineau. In Ottawa-Gatineau, visible minorities in culture occupations earned 2.9% more, on average, than other cultural workers, but this was partially due to a higher proportion of visible minority cultural workers working as software engineers and designers, which is the highest paying culture occupation. When that occupation is excluded, visible minorities in Ottawa-Gatineau earned 8.9% less than workers in the same occupations who are not visible minorities.
Cultural worker employment incomes, 2015 ($)
Cultural worker employment incomes, 2015 ($), excluding software engineers and designers
Notes:
Visible minority is the term used by Statistics Canada in the 2016 Census (on whose data this report is based) to describe respondents who are not white or Indigenous in order to maintain consistency with the federal Employment Equity Act. Since 2016, there has been an ongoing dialogue as to how best to talk about race in data collection and release. The term visible minority assumes Whiteness as default, deracializing Whiteness and othering non-White racial groups. Even where well-intended, this can contribute to marginalization and systemic racism. In addition, we recognize that “visible minority” is a term that many of the people who belong to these groups may not identify with. While visible minority will be used where unavoidable to describe the data, we recognize both the problems and limitations inherent in using this term. The City of Ottawa now uses the term “racialized” in the development of the City’s Anti-Racism Strategy.
For a complete list of culture occupations, including the occupations that we sometimes exclude because they likely include both culture and non-culture work, see the OCRG website.
The 2016 Census reported employment incomes from the previous year.
Average employment incomes were not available for visible minorities in some culture occupations at the CMA-level due to data suppression. However, data could be attained for some major and minor groups within the National Occupation Classifications (NOC) that are made up mostly or entirely of culture occupations. For example, all occupations within NOC Major Group 51 (professional occupations in art and culture) are culture occupations. Average employment incomes were not available for some of the occupations in this group in many CMAs, but an average for the group as a whole was available for each of the six CMAs shown above. Even with occupation grouping, six culture occupations still needed to be excluded from the analysis above due to missing data. In Ottawa-Gatineau, these occupations account just 0.7% of cultural workers who are visible minorities and 2.3% of cultural workers who are not part of a visible minority group. In addition, one non-culture occupation, Land Surveyors, needed to be included as part of NOC Minor Group 251. For more information on the National Occupation Classifications, see Statistics Canada. Smaller CMAs, such as Winnipeg and Quebec City, could not be included in this analysis because there was significantly more data suppression in those CMAs.