Findings

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Where are the workers and where are the jobs?
The big picture: Rural and urban commuters
Looking more closely: Commuting in different parts of rural and urban Canada
Out-commuting: Where are rural and urban commuters going?
In-commuting: Who is filling rural and urban jobs?
Conclusions

Where are the workers and where are the jobs?

In 2001, out of 14.7 million workers, 2.8 million resided in rural and small town (RST) areas. Of these 2.8 million, about 2.3 million also worked in a RST area, but not necessarily in the municipality where they were living (Table 1). Meanwhile, approximately 0.4 million commuted to a municipality in a larger urban center (LUC).

Rural and small town workers were not a major contributor to jobs located in the labour market of larger urban centres.  In 2001, about 96% of urban jobs were filled by LUC residents, either living in the same municipality or commuting from another LUC municipality. Less than 4% of urban jobs were filled by commuting RST residents. However, because of the difference in the size of the population in LUC and RST areas, the 0.4 million workers that constituted the 4% of urban jobs represented 16% of all workers residing in RST areas. Thus, the urban labour market was relatively important for RST workers, but these workers were less important in terms of filling urban jobs.

In 2001, there were nearly 164,000 commuters going from a LUC municipality to a municipality in a RST area. These workers represented only a little over 1% of the workers residing in LUCs but they filled approximately 7% of the jobs in RST areas. Hence, in aggregate terms, the rural jobs were of marginal importance to urban workers but the urban workers were somewhat more important for filling rural jobs.

The big picture: Rural and urban commuters

In 2001, approximately 4.8 million individuals, or one-third of the Canadian workforce, crossed a municipal boundary in their travel to work (Table 2).  Most of these commuted a relatively short distance. According to Statistics Canada (2003), only 13% of commuters travelled more than 25 km to work (this number does include commuters who remained within the same municipality).

With over 80% of the Canadian population living in LUCs in 2001 (Bollman and Clemenson, forthcoming), it is not surprising that most of the commuting was concentrated in and around urban centres. In 2001, about 3.8 million commuters travelled between urban jurisdictions.  These represented 78% of all commuters in Canada. The remaining 22% of commuters (just over 1 million workers) represented all other regional flows (urban-to-rural, rural-to-urban or rural-to-rural).

Only approximately 164,000 people, or 4% of commuters who resided in a LUC, travelled to a municipality in a RST area for work (Table 2 and Figure 1). This vividly illustrates the extent to which Canadian LUCs represent self-contained labour markets.

Among commuters residing in RST areas, slightly over half (447,000) were going to another RST municipality. These RST residents, therefore, contributed to the economy of other rural areas.  In comparison, approximately 444,000 workers commuted from a rural and small town to a larger urban area. This suggests that rural-to-rural commuting accounted for a significant proportion of the labour supply in Canada's RST areas.

These results indicate that when it comes to workers commuting from a RST area, rural jobs were just as important as urban jobs. This challenges the prevailing idea that commuting essentially involves travelling from a rural residence to a job in the city.

There is reason to believe that the commuting pattern that emerges from these results would also hold for alternative definitions of rural. In particular, research that focuses on commuting patterns within CMAs points to the increasing complexity of commuting patterns within metro agglomerations. Heisz and LaRochelle-Côté (2005) showed that between 1996 and 2001, the relative economic importance of inner cities declined as the number of jobs in the suburbs increased at more than four times the pace compared to those in the core urban areas. As a result, more and more people commuted cross-town to these suburban areas. From 1981 to 2001, the number of workers travelling to the suburbs increased 74% to 1.8 million, while those commuting to the city core rose only by 28% to 1.3 million (Statistics Canada, 2003). Of those who commuted to the surrounding municipalities in 2001, about two-thirds came from another surrounding municipality and one-third from the core urban municipality. The 1.2 million workers commuting from one suburban municipality to another in 2001 represent a 91% increase between 1981 and 2001.

Because the majority of child-rearing and house-keeping responsibilities still seem to fall to females, it might be expected that fewer females would commute and that those who do commute would commute smaller distances. In terms of commuting share, for almost all source/destination combinations, both females and males differed by only a few percentage points from the overall commuter shares although female commuting rates tended to be higher between CSDs in the same type of area. The results show that there were approximately 400,000 more males commuting in Canada than females (2.6 million males compared to 2.2 million females) (Appendix Tables A8 and A9).  However, their overall patterns are similar.

Looking more closely: Commuting in different parts of rural and urban Canada

In order to probe more deeply into commuting flows by type of area, Metropolitan Influenced Zones (MIZ) are used to differentiate between various RST areas.  In addition, Canada's cities (LUCs) are divided into Larger CMAs, Smaller CMAs, and CAs (Box 3).

Overall, the share of people who commute was similar for LUCs and RST areas (Appendix Table A5). With the exception of Strong MIZ, each type of region had less than 40% of workers employed in a different CSD to the one in which they live (Figure 2). Approximately 50% of workers residing in Strong MIZ commuted across a CSD boundary.

Municipalities in Strong MIZ are more likely to act as "feeder" communities, providing workers for urban areas. There are 4,605 municipalities in RST areas of Canada (Appendix Table A1) and of these, 663, or 14%, are in Strong MIZ. However, these municipalities contain almost 750,000 workers (Appendix Table A2) or 27% of the total RST workforce.

Municipalities within larger CMAs had a higher share of commuters than municipalities within smaller CMAs, which in turn had a higher share than in CAs. Larger CMAs typically contain many municipalities but relatively few have major employment sites. The remaining municipalities are mainly residential areas.

There is also a discernable pattern in RST areas. As one moves from municipalities in Strong MIZ to Moderate MIZ to Weak MIZ to No MIZ, relatively fewer workers commute. Again, this result points to the "feeder" role of Strong MIZ which, in an aggregate regional perspective, appears to reflect the idea of a "bedroom community" more than any other type of region.

Out-commuting: Where are rural and urban commuters going?

In this section we look specifically at out-commuting flows toward various types of communities, as a share of total out-commuting from the community of origin.

In both larger and smaller CMAs, the share of out-commuters who travel to rural and small town (RST) was fairly insignificant (Figure 3). In addition, the absolute number of commuters is relatively small (Appendix Table A3). However, a much higher proportion (21%) of out-commuters in CAs travel to a municipality in a rural and small town area (Figure 3 and Appendix Table A4).

Not surprisingly, municipalities within Strong MIZ were the most common destination for the out-commuters from a LUC area (Figure 4). However, Moderate MIZ was only a few percentage points behind Strong MIZ in this regard (and even tied with Strong MIZ in the case of commuting from larger CMAs).

Among rural and small town areas, Strong MIZ municipalities had the most prevalent out-bound commuting relationship with urban areas (Figure 3).  More than 80% of out-commuters residing in Strong MIZ travelled to a LUC municipality. This finding is essentially due to the validity of the MIZ classification which is based upon urban-bound commuting.

The picture is considerably different beyond Strong MIZ. In municipalities in Moderate MIZ areas, about 40% of out-commuters travelled to a LUC municipality for work, while 60% travelled to another RST municipality. Less than 10% of Weak and No MIZ out-commuters travelled to a LUC municipality for work while over 90% went to another RST municipality.

Census agglomerations (i.e., urban areas with 10,000 and 99,999 residents) were the most frequent destination among RST residents who out-commuted to a LUC (Figure 5). Commuters who resided in municipalities in Strong MIZ, Moderate MIZ and Weak MIZ were more apt to travel to a Larger CMA for work than to a Smaller CMA.

In Moderate MIZ and Weak MIZ, those doing a rural-to-rural commute tended to go to another municipality with the same MIZ classification (Figure 6). For instance, 36% of out-commuters from a municipality in a Moderate MIZ travelled to another Moderate MIZ municipality. This was even more evident for municipalities in Weak MIZ where over 70% of their out-commuting workforce travelled to another Weak MIZ municipality. These commuting flows suggest strong rural-to-rural economic linkages.

Rural-to-rural commuters in Strong MIZ were almost as likely to travel to a municipality in Moderate MIZ as to one in Strong MIZ. Hence, unlike the other types of MIZ, out-commuters from Strong MIZ do not appear to have a single dominant RST destination. This again points to the "bedroom" or "frontier" nature of Strong MIZ communities, which have typically high out-commuting flows toward different types of regions. Finally, rural-to-rural commuters in No MIZ typically travelled to a Weak MIZ municipality. No MIZ municipalities are often surrounded by a Weak MIZ. This is especially the case for those No MIZ municipalities that are Indian reserves.

In-commuting: Who is filling rural and urban jobs?

In this section we focus on the share of total employment within an area that is taken by in-commuters. Thus, the question is: where are the in-commuters that fill rural and urban jobs coming from?

The share of local jobs that are filled by in-commuting is particularly high for Larger CMAs (38%), and Smaller CMAs and CAs (almost 30%) while it is close to 25% for Strong MIZ, Moderate MIZ and Weak MIZ (Figure 7).  It is particularly low for No MIZ (about 16%). However, whether the in-commuters mainly stem from rural or urban areas depends on the type of area. Figure 7 differs from Figure 2 because in the former the shares refer to the workforce that work in the area, while in the latter the shares refer to the workforce that reside in the area.

When we look at urban labour markets, are there many in-commuters from rural and small town areas filling urban jobs? Although there is some difference among LUCs, the share of rural in-commuting is generally low. Municipalities in CAs had a larger portion of their total jobs filled by in-commuters from RST areas, about 11% (Appendix Table A7). In contrast, only 4% of jobs in Smaller CMAs, and less than 2% of jobs in Larger CMAs, were filled by in-commuters from RST areas.

Within RST areas, the share of jobs taken by in-commuters is generally lower than that seen in LUC municipalities (Figure 7 and Appendix Table A7). Furthermore, Strong MIZ is the only rural and small town area that had a majority of commuters that came from municipalities in LUCs. About 16% of the jobs in Strong MIZ municipalities were filled by commuters from a LUC municipality compared to 9% that were filled by commuters from a RST CSD.

For other types of rural and small town areas, the majority of in-commuting emanated from other municipalities within RST areas. Once again, this reflects the strong rural-to-rural linkages which tend to be obscured by an analysis of commuting that focuses primarily on urban-to-rural flows. Roughly 20% of the jobs in Moderate and Weak MIZ municipalities are filled by workers that came from another municipality in a RST area (Figure 7).

In Strong MIZ, more jobs were taken by commuters from LUC municipalities than by commuters from any other type of area.  In contrast, in Moderate and Weak MIZ more jobs were taken by commuters from a municipality of the same MIZ category than by commuters from any other type of area. The linkage between Strong MIZ municipalities and other MIZ categories (even with other Strong MIZ CSDs) is small compared to the linkage with LUC municipalities.

In Strong MIZ municipalities, only about 3% of the jobs were filled by commuters from a Moderate MIZ; similarly, within Moderate MIZ municipalities, only about 3% of the jobs were filled by commuters from a Strong MIZ (Figure 8). Thus, Moderate, Weak and No MIZ municipalities not only have a low degree of integration with LUC municipalities, they are also relatively less integrated with Strong MIZ municipalities.

Census Agglomerations are the main departure point of LUC commuters who travelled to RST areas (Figure 9). With the exception of Weak MIZ, a considerably larger share of workers in each type of rural and small town area travelled from a CA than from either a smaller or larger CMA. In general, it was the Strong MIZ municipalities which were most affected by commuters from a LUC municipality.

Over 16% of the people who worked in Strong MIZ municipalities travelled from a LUC municipality – of these well over half were in-commuting from a CA (Figure 9). The equivalent share for Moderate MIZ, the next closest regional type, was approximately 7%. It should be noted, however, that the MIZ classification is based on the size of commuting to any CMA or CA and thus so-called reverse commuting from a CMA or CA to Strong MIZ municipalities may be expected.

Conclusions

This analysis is a first attempt to account for the multidirectional nature of commuter flows, with a specific focus on rural commuting flows across Canada. Understanding the direction and magnitude of these flows has implications for the labour force residing in a rural and small town community as well as for the labour market of rural communities.

Commuting is, to a large extent, an urban phenomenon. Given the existing distribution of population and jobs, it is not surprising that close to 80% of commuting takes place between municipalities within larger urban centres (LUCs). The existing research on commuting within CMAs indicates that, even in these areas, commuting patterns are becoming increasingly complex with growing core-to-periphery and periphery-to-periphery flows.

This analysis found that, similar to urban commuting, rural commuting is also more complex than commonly believed. Any analysis of commuting that concentrates on the flows from the (rural) periphery to the (urban) core overlooks half of rural commuting, which is rural-to-rural. For commuters residing in RST areas, rural-to-rural commuting is as large as the rural-to-urban commuting. Moreover, rural jobs are over twice as reliant on in-commuting rural workers as they are on in-commuting urban workers. Rural-to-rural linkages appear particularly strong in RST areas beyond Strong MIZ.

Overlooking these rural-to-rural commuting flows has clear implications. It limits understanding of the economic linkages among rural communities and the degree of integration of rural labour markets.

In addition to exposing the extent of rural-to-rural commuting, this analysis has provided evidence that Statistics Canada's definition of larger urban centres (CMA and CA) is particularly appropriate.  CMAs and CAs seem to successfully delineate self-contained labour markets.  Only 4% of jobs in larger urban centres are filled by commuters from RST areas (these workers represent 16% of workers residing in RST areas).

This analysis has also corroborated the fact that RST areas classified as Strong MIZ accurately constitute the dividing belt between LUCs and RST areas. In this sense, the prevailing MIZ classification appears appropriate.

The pattern of rural-to-rural commuting has been labelled by Persson et al. (1997) as the 'arena society' to emphasize the fact that different functions – residence, recreation, and work – are increasingly disjointed over space and may each involve a commute in a different direction.

At the regional scale, the analysis of commuting flows is a precondition for the identification of functional areas that present strong economic linkages and share a common pool of labour. These areas form an important territorial unit of analysis as well as a focus for the delivery of policy. The research challenge ahead is to provide a better delineation of rural labour markets which can complement the information captured by the prevailing MIZ classification. Clearly some rural areas are strongly connected to urban labour markets; however, most of the rural communities and half of the rural commuters are dependent on other rural labour markets.

Appendix