Skills of official-language minority communities in Canada: findings from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC)

The Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) is a survey of adults aged 16 to 65. It assesses key cognitive skills used at work and at home that are needed to participate fully in society and the economy in the 21st century. Led by the OECD in partnership with countries around the world, PIAAC directly assesses proficiency in information-processing skills in three domains: literacy, numeracy, and problem solving in technology-rich environments (PS-TRE). The survey also collects information on a range of personal, socioeconomic, and other traits, including participating in different forms of adult learning, the number of adult learning activities, the amount of time dedicated to adult learning, types of learning activities, barriers to adult learning, employer support for such learning, and reasons and motivation for participation in adult learning.

This report has been prepared with two objectives in mind: first, to determine whether there are differences in the skills of francophones and anglophones in the same province and, second, to identify factors that may influence the skills of official-language minority communities' (OLMCs') members. To this end, it presents a descriptive analysis of the results and skill levels of these communities in the four provinces of interest (New Brunswick, Quebec, Ontario, and Manitoba) according to a selected set of language, demographic, and socioeconomic characteristics, and in comparison with those of the linguistic majorities in their respective provinces. It also presents the results of multivariate analyses conducted to identify sociodemographic factors associated with observed skill gaps between minorities and linguistic majorities.

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