Within the social dimension, why do the values for the “number of close friends” indicator change between survey years?
The value seen in 2003 is the average of the following categories of close friends: (i) none; (ii) 1-2; (iii) 3-5; (iv) 6-10; (v) 11-20; and (vi) more than 20. But in 2008 and 2013, Statistics Canada modified the question and so the value displayed is the average of the actual number of close friends. Hence, precaution should be taken when comparing the results across years for this indicator.