Ethics in the Professions: researching an occupation

For this assignment you are asked to find information on employment equity in a selected occupation: breakdown by age, sex, visible minority status, and so on. Your main source of information on these demographic categories is information from the Census of Canada and the National Household Survey (NHS) of Canada. The Census / NHS is done every five years. The most current census data now available is for 2011, but the most detailed data available is still for 2006.

In addition to the Census data sources listed on this page, you should also consider looking at the web pages of any national associations or bodies that are involved in regulating your chosen profession, as they will often release statistics on their memberships.

For statistical purposes, occupations in Canada are broken down into categories by the National Occupational Classification for Statistics (NOC-S). It would be impossible to have a table with data on every possible job - there are too many! But the NOC-S lists about 700 possible categories, so it is usually possible to find a category that is fairly close.

Census and NHS Data - 2011

691 possible occupations to choose from. The only currently available demographics are age and sex, so supplement your research with the 2006 table. This page will be updated if more information becomes available.

To use this table: the initial table will show you the totals by sex and age group: that is, it gives you a table of occupations and the total number of both males and females and of all ages. Use the drop-down menus at the top to see the number of females only, and numbers for different age groups.

Occupation - National Occupational Classification (NOC) 2011 (691), Class of Worker (5), Age Groups (13B) and Sex (3) for the Employed Labour Force Aged 15 Years and Over

Census Data - 2006

This table has 720 possible occupations, and gives information on breakdown by age, sex, visible minorities, immigrants,  language groups, and educational attainment.

To use this table: use the drop-down menu at the top to select the occupation you are interested in. The occupations are organized by "occupation number" - search this list to find out the number your occupation is listed under!

Occupation - National Occupational Classification for Statistics 2006 (720C), Sex (3) and Selected Demographic, Cultural, Labour Force, Educational and Income Characteristics (273) for the Population 15 Years and Over.