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Indicator 6.3.2 - Education attainment levels in forest-based communities core indicator 
Education attainment is an important measure of forest community well-being and resilience because it offers a measure of human capital in the community. Human capital refers to the productive capacity of individuals in the form of skills and capabilities that can be used in the production of goods and services in a region. Furthermore, communities marked by high levels of human capital are likely better equipped to adapt to changing social and economic conditions and more capable of maintaining a competitive advantage over communities with lower levels of human capital. Human capital involves other skills and abilities such as entrepreneurship and general levels of human health, but education attainment levels offer a useful proxy for human capital at the community level (Parkins and Beckley 2001). Education attainment levels are reported as the proportion of residents in a CSD who have obtained at least a bachelor's degree for both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal forest-dependent, nondependent, and other resource-dependent CSDs. Within the non-Aboriginal, multiresource-dependent rural populations of Canada, the proportion of residents with a university degree is 7.2%, which is slightly higher than the average in forest-dependent and other single resource dependent CSDs (6.4%) (Table 6.3c). The relationship between forest dependence and education attainment across Canada is mixed, with higher levels of education attainment associated with greater forest dependence in a few regions such as Manitoba and Saskatchewan and the reverse in other regions with available data. Significant negative relationships exist in Quebec and British Columbia where the proportion of residents with university degrees drops from 6.6% and 11.6% in multiresource-dependent CSDs to 4.5% and 8.6% in forest-dependent CSDs, respectively. Table 6.3c Average proportion of residents who have obtained a bachelor's degree or higher in non-Aboriginal census subdivisions (%).
nd: Not determined due to insufficient data. Results from this indicator suggest that non-Aboriginal forest-dependent communities are generally not better or are slightly worse than other rural communities in terms of their formal education attainment levels. The proportion of residents in Aboriginal CSDs with at least a bachelor's degree hovers around 4.5% for most of the country, except for British Columbia where the percentage of degree holders dips to 3.1% in forestdependent CSDs, and in the Territories where the percentage of degree holders peaks at 7.2% (Table 6.3d). The analysis of Aboriginal CSDs shows no significant relationship between forest dependence and education attainment. Therefore, Aboriginal forest-dependent CSDs are generally in no advantaged or disadvantaged position with respect to formal levels of education when compared with nonforest-dependent Aboriginal communities. Table 6.3d Average proportion of residents who have obtained a bachelor's degree or higher in Aboriginal census subdivisions (%).
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