Economic Vitality Index

To assist the ministère des Affaires municipales et de l’Habitation, the Institut de la statistique du Québec designed and produced a composite index that regularly measures the economic vitality of municipalities, Indigenous communities, territories without municipal organizations, as well as regional county municipalities (RCMs).

The territorial economic-vitality index (EVI) represents the geometric mean of standardized variables for three indicators: workforce ratios, individuals’ median total income and average annual population growth rate over five years. These indicators each reflect a critical component of economic vitality, namely the labour market, living standards and demographic dynamics.

Territorial economic-vitality indices have been compiled from 2002 through 2014. Since then, indices have been updated every second year by the Institut de la statistique du Québec. 

The urban areas with the strongest EVIs are those surrounding Québec City, Montréal and Gatineau. Specifically, the 13 of 15 highest-ranked localities for EVI in 2018 are suburbs of these larger cities.

Economic-vitality index: what’s that all about?

The territorial economic-vitality index (EVI) represents the geometric mean of standardized variables for three indicators, namely workforce ratios, individuals’ median total income and average annual population growth rate over five years. These indicators each reflect a critical component of economic vitality: the labour market, living standards and demographic dynamics.

Variables were standardized using a modified Z-score, based on the mean deviation from the median. The value of the economic vitality index can be either negative or positive. A negative value generally means that the locality lags behind the majority of Québec localities in terms of economic vitality; conversely, a positive value indicates that the locality outperforms most localities.

Source : www.statistique.quebec.ca