ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the Human Capital Model in more detail, focusing on its applicability for understanding Indigenous development and decision making. A fundamental question for Indigenous policy developments is whether there are positive economic returns to education, and whether these economic returns vary relative to comparable non-Indigenous populations. However, in certain circumstances there is very high demand for the labour of Indigenous peoples with specific sets of skills, for example for governments and resource extraction companies attempting to meet their social responsibilities. Indigenous males with lower levels of education have a greater employment probability than females with similar levels of education, but the gender gap is essentially zero at the upper end of the education distribution. Equally important is the consistent experience of Indigenous peoples across the world in lacking access to high quality, early childhood education that would allow this ability to be developed and applied to formal education.
