Health Inequities in Manitoba: Is the Socioeconomic Gap

Health Inequities in Manitoba: Is the Socioeconomic Gap in Health Widening or Narrowing Over Time?
High School Completion (Graduation)
Definition
Level of educational attainment where the individual has completed high school (completed Grade 12).
Graduated students are identified in the student record or if the student has earned 28 or more credits
or if the student earned four or more Grade 12 credits during high school. In this report, individuals
were followed from Grade 9 for six years to ensure that those graduating late are identified as high
school graduates. Information on credits earned and enrolment is not complete for band–operated
schools (missing for about 50% of students). When students in band–operated schools are included in
the analyses, as in this chapter, rates of high school completion in areas with band–operated schools
may under–estimate high school completion. 2 Rates of high school completion excluding students in
band–operated schools can be found in Appendix 3.
When students in band–operated schools are excluded, high school graduations rates increase by about
10%; and there is less disparity shown in rural areas and more disparity in urban areas, compared to
when these students are included.
Note: in the graphs, the year refers to the date of onset of the school year. For example, “1996” refers to
the school year beginning September 1996 and ending June 1997.
Time Periods High School Graduates (including Band–Operated schools) (%)
T1: 1996 74.18
T2: 1997 75.90
T3: 1998 76.30
T4: 1999 77.01
T5: 2000 77.51
T6: 2001 77.30
T7: 2002 77.31
Key findings: High School Completion (Graduation)
Manitoba overall rates:
• From the first time period T1 (school year 1996/97) to the last time period T7 (school year 2002/03),
high school completion increased from 74.2% to 77.3% provincially.
Rates by neighbourhood income quintile over time:
Rural:
• From T1 to T7, the high school completion rates of rural neighbourhood income quintile groups R2,
R4, and R5 fluctuated, but showed an overall increase. The high school completion rate of R3 showed
little overall change; and R1, the lowest neighbourhood income quintile group, showed an initial
increase and then a subsequent decrease.
2 For example, when a student in a band–operated school has only 16 credits within six years of entering Grade 9 and shows up
in the enrolment data only in Grade 9 and 10 and then has four years with no enrolment and no credits earned, we do not know
whether this is because they withdrew from school or whether their enrolment and credit information was not submitted to
Manitoba Education.
Manitoba Centre for Health Policy 55