With the release of the 2024 Canadian Income Survey (CIS) data, previously published estimates for reference years 2018 to 2023 have been revised to incorporate the latest information from the 2021 Census of Population. These revisions impact population size estimates and demographic compositions, affecting a broad range of indicators produced by the survey.

In addition, geographic variables were updated for estimates from 2021 to 2023 to reflect the 2021 Census geography boundaries.

Changes to the CIS have also been made to include a person's gender instead of their sex. These revisions start in 2021, the first year that gender information was available. Although sex and gender refer to two different concepts, the introduction of gender does not have a significant impact on overall data analysis and historical comparability, given the small size of the transgender and non-binary populations.

The industry classification used in the CIS has also been updated, and the industry variables were revised back to the beginning of the CIS in 2012. The CIS now uses the North American Industry Classification System Canada 2022 Version 1.0. 

Finally, territorial estimates are now available in the CIS data tables, starting in 2018 and where available. The national estimates were also revised to include the territories. 

For Canada-level estimates, the impact of these revisions is relatively small and does not represent a break in the series. For more information, please see Canadian Income Survey: Population rebasing, 2018 to 2023.

• Important information for data users:
  
  • Variable “GENDER” replaced variable “SEX” back to 2012. For the years before 2021, values from the sex variable were used to populate the gender variable.
  • Disability files don’t include the territories.
  • Although the territories were added to the CIS data tables back to 2018, they are not included in the main CIS microdata files from 2018 to 2020. This means that national estimates for those years might not match perfectly with published national estimates.
  • A few variables are not available for the territories:
    
    • low-income variables based on the Low Income Cut-Offs (LICOs)
    • VISMIN and VISMINFL variables
    • housing variables for renters
    • core housing need variable (CHNEED).