The temporal evolution of income polarization in Canada’s largest CMAs

Abstract

Income polarization is a pressing issue which is increasingly discussed by academics and policymakers. The present research examines income polarization in Canada’s eight largest Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs) using data at the census-tract (CT) level between 1971 and 2016. Generally, there are significant decreasing trends in the middle-income population with simultaneously increasing trends in low-income groups. The high-income groups have been relatively stable with fewer significant increasing population trends. Using conventional mapping and cartograms, patterns of the spatial evolution of income inequality are illustrated. Every CMA examined contains an increasing trend of spatial fragmentation at the patch level within each CMA’s landscape mosaic. The results of a spatial autocorrelation analysis at the sub-patch, CT level, exhibit significant spatial clustering of high-income CTs as one process that dominates the increasingly fragmented landscape mosaic.