Rural areas and small towns have a higher percentage of arts, culture, and heritage organizations than their population share
Also: rural and urban percentages of employment and revenues
Today’s post provides an analysis of not-for-profit, non-governmental organizations in the arts, culture, and heritage. The post examines the number of organizations, average revenues, average number of employees, and the rural / urban proportions for each indicator. Next week, I’ll analyze provincial statistics on the same topic.
Not-for-profit organizations in Statistics Canada’s Business Register are included in the dataset, whether or not they have charitable status. The only condition is that “they reported either revenues, number of employees, or both for 2021”. (Source: Metadata and User Guide for Rural Canada Non-Profits Database 2021.)
Organizations were classified as being in rural areas or small towns if they are located outside of Census Metropolitan Areas or Census Agglomerations (i.e., regions with core cities that have a population of at least 10,000). According to the 2021 census, 16% of the Canadian population resides outside of Census Metropolitan Areas or Census Agglomerations, i.e., in rural areas or small towns.
For convenience, I occasionally shorten “rural areas and small towns” to just “rural”.
The dataset comprises 135,540 not-for-profit organizations, which garnered $327 billion in revenues and employed 3.5 million people in 2021. The 6,368 not-for-profit organizations in the arts, heritage, and entertainment generated $6.4 billion in revenues and employed 76,400 people. Arts, culture, and heritage organizations represent 5% of all not-for-profit organizations, 2% of revenues, and 2% of employment.
A few words about the organizational classification (because this stuff always matters)
Not-for-profit organizations are classified by type according to an international standard. The breakdown into what I’m calling “arts, culture, and heritage” is a rare example of a nearly ideal measurement (not 100% ideal simply because we can’t delve into “arts” organizations or “heritage” organizations on their own).
However, what is not ideal is that Statistics Canada has, in my opinion, mis-named this group, calling it “Culture and recreation” in their datasets, despite the fact that recreation organizations are included in a separate group for “Sports, recreation, and social clubs“. (“Culture and recreation” is the official name for the overarching grouping, which has thankfully been split into the above two sub-groups.)
After a close reading of the international classification system and Statistics Canada’s guide for this product, I have decided that “arts, culture, and heritage” is an accurate description of this group.
In early 2023, when analyzing 2019 statistics from the same dataset, I was confused by Statistics Canada’s naming and opted to highlight the “arts, heritage, and entertainment” industry group, which also includes organizations in sports, gambling, and recreation. The industry group that I highlighted last year is much larger, and the data are not comparable to today’s post.