Map(s) of the Week: Childbirth, week 3

SHUTTERSTOCK

Map: No other parent listed, 2007

This week continues our series on childbirth in the GTA.

The information comes from data I bought from the Office of the Registrar-General, which was taken from the Statement of Live Birth form (.pdf) which is filled out when a child is born in Ontario. 

All the maps are based on the first three characters of the postal code of the mother, and show data from 2007, the most recent year available.

This week's map looks at single mothers, by showing the percentage of 2007 births where a father/other parent wasn't listed on the Statement of Live Birth.

The most striking thing about this map is the solid block roughly along Black Creek Drive and the 400, where six postal areas side by side all have rates over 10%.

High rates are also found in the east downtown and South Riverdale, the Chinatown/Kensington Market area, and the West Hill/Guildwood area of Scarborough. Rates are lower in the Yonge St. corridor and the 905 generally except (relatively) for downtown Oshawa, northwest Caledon and the Steeles/Kennedy Road area of Brampton.

Here are the 10 highest:

M3N	Jane-Finch	16.20%
M5T	Kensington Market/Chinatown	15.66%
M3L	W Downsview	14.66%
M1E	West Hill/Guildwood	10.89%
M5A	Regent Park/St Lawrence/Corktown	10.72%
M3M	Central Downsview	10.59%
M9M	Weston	10.49%
M4M	South Riverdale	10.44%
M6L	401/Jane/Lawrence/CNR	10.32%
M6M	Keelesdale/Mount Dennis	10.09%

Comments

[j. gold]

It would be interesting to take 2006 census household income adjusted income and see the relationship between the two pieces of data.

[moof]

L7K in north west (not east) Caledon is interesting. The population is relatively small (half of L7C and one quarter of L7E). Could a low birthrate combined with a small population allow for a small number of births to swing the percentage? (the number of births for each area would be nice)

[pcain]

moof -

Thanks for the east/west correction, which now appears on the blog and the map.

L7K had 47 births in 2007, of which 4 had no father/other parent listed, so the issue here could well be the low population. The average number of births in the FSAs we're looking at is 357.