8 Nova Scotias

I tried to make sense of some data at Statistics Canada by doing a Factor Analysis. Factor analysis is a way of simplifying complex datasts by looking for underlying variables that correlate with observed data. Imagine looking for patterns of dormitory life in college. You assemble data from students about where they live, their gender, year, major, home province, activities, grades, tests and some other stuff. A factor analysis reveals an association among gender, pre-med and grades, leading you to speculate on the existence of wonky science dorms. Scoring the dorms on this new variable shows a considerable range, and another pattern of high scoring athletes from Nova Scotia. Now what sport could that be?

I chose 51 bits of data for each of the 60 Census Subdivisions in Nova Scotia. There are 960 variables in the survey, so I picked a few I thought would be interesting. To allow for the differing size of the subdivisions, all data was converted to percent. Although they are Census Subdivisions, no Indian Reserves are included. The reporting of data for Indian Reserves is confusing, idiosyncratic and ultimately useless. Data came from the 2011 National Household Survey. Factor Analysis was done through SPSS.

In the end, I learned a lot about Statistics Canada and their opaque ways, and a little about Nova Scotia. There were 8 factors. Here they are. My characterizations of the factors try to capture the associations of factors and variables.

Why do this?  Despite limitations of the data, at the large scale, it corroborates some impressions.  Acadians, Scots, Small Towns, Deep Roots - there is empirical confirmation of our instincts.  In detail, it's interesting to see the diversity in each subdivision.  Antigonish toen has a bit of everything.  Truro is harder to pigeonhole.

Bluenosers, symbol a sailboat, account for 19% of the variance. The other factors diminish in their explanatory power. Bluenosers are long-time Canadians, Christian, from large families, engaged in traditional occupations, without postsecondary education, below the national average income. They are also the reverse: no Bachelor's degree, not immigrants, not in some occupations.

The male/female thing is a bit odd, but I think it can be explained.

And so on. Bluenosers, Prosperous, Middle Class, Acadian, Working Hard, Small Town, Celtic, Cultural Mosaic.  If you have other, better typologies, let me know.



Each of our 60 Census Subdivisions can be scored on each factor.   Hover your mouse over the chart for details.  Places are in alphabetical order.



Each place has a factor with a maximum.  For Antigonish, the seventh bar, the maximum is 'Celtic' - 2.00119.  But it also scores well on several other facors.  It is negatively associated with 'Bluenosers'.

And here is the map of maximum factors.  Clicking a symbol will give some details.  The location of the symbols is Statistics Canada's centroid of the Census Subdivision, whch is why Halifax is halfway up the Eastern Shore.