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We use the 2012 Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies to examine the relationship between information-processing skills, educational attainment, and labour market outcomes among Indigenous peoples in Canada. Relative to the non-Indigenous sample, we find negative earnings differentials, higher unemployment, and lower employment and labour market participation among Indigenous peoples, as well as important differences between First Nations, Métis, and Inuit workers. First Nations peoples show larger gaps in terms of earnings and employment outcomes. Moreover, Métis peoples show worse employment outcomes and negative earnings differentials in the upper part of the distribution. First Nations peoples also show sizable gaps in literacy, numeracy, and technology skill relative to the non-Indigenous sample. Not surprisingly, there is a positive relationship between information-processing skills and wages. However, the returns to skills are very similar for Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. That is, we find no evidence of economic discrimination. Once these skills are conditioned on, the earnings differentials decline. We also find that education can reduce skill and wage gaps, although the additional impact is small. The results imply the need to consider barriers to education faced by Indigenous peoples.

AbstractFood insecurity is prevalent in northern Canada, especially among Indigenous peoples. As one approach to address this issue, the federal government subsidizes the shipping of necessities to remote northern communities, initially through the Food Mail Program and then Nutrition North Canada as of April 2011. We use the Canadian Community Health Survey (2007 to 2016) and a difference‐in‐differences model to estimate the impact of the policy change on food insecurity, testing for heterogeneity between Indigenous and non‐Indigenous families. Our results, which withstand several robustness checks, indicate that the policy change increased the likelihood of overall food insecurity by 8.9 percentage points (77.3% relative to the sample mean) and moderate/severe food insecurity by 7.1 percentage points (89.3% relative to the sample mean). It also increased severe food insecurity among Indigenous families by 7.3 percentage points (more than three times the sample mean). There was, however, variation across regions and subsamples of families with children. Specifically, the policy change was particularly harmful to Indigenous families in the territories and Inuit Nunangat. The detrimental impact was also heightened in the presence of children, especially when considering severe food insecurity among Indigenous families.