Rural Income Disparities in Canada: A Comparison Across the Provinces

One objective of public policy is to reduce income disparity in Canada. Previous research (e.g. Rupnik, Thompson-James and Bollman (2001)) has indicated that, on average, rural residents have a similar incidence of low income as urban residents. However, there is considerable diversity within rural regions, i.e. the term 'rural' is far from being a homogeneous entity. For example, the rural regions in Ontario are very different from the rural regions in the Prairies due to the differences in population size and access to markets, among other features. Since rural regions across Canada differ economically and socially, it follows that the nature of rural income disparities could also differ across provinces in Canada. The objective of this study is to describe the range in income disparities across rural Canada.