An overview of commuting in Canada: With special emphasis on rural commuting and employment

Due to changes in employment opportunities in many rural settings, it is important to understand the characteristics of all types of commuting that occur between rural and urban environments (and not just the case of rural to urban journey to work patterns). However, no Canada-wide study exists that considers all commuting types. With the use of customized tabulations from the 1991 Canadian census we examine all directional commuting flows for all areas of Canada (at the census subdivision level) and emphasize the commuting patterns and employment opportunities inherent to the rural component of the population. While only slight differences are detected between commuters based on demographic biographies, substantial contrasts in commuting tendencies are reported when the Canadian population is categorized by commuting type, industry, and region. The volume of commuting in Canada is poorly predicted by a gravity model regression application (using independent variables measuring distance and population), but the results do provide some valuable insights for future study.