Statistics Canada
Research Data Centre
at McMaster
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Statistics Canada
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Objective: Knowledge is lacking on the extent to which area-level characteristics contribute to variations observed in the use of mental health services. This study examined the influence of area- and individual-level characteristics on the use of mental health services. Methods: Data from a nationally representative, population-based, cross-sectional survey, the Canadian Community Health Survey—Mental Health and Well-Being, consisting of adults aged 15 years or older (n = 36 984), were linked to Canadian 2001 Census profiles according to health region boundaries (n = 97). Multilevel multivariable logistic regression modelling was used to: estimate variation in 12-month self-reported use of health services for mental health reasons between health regions; and, estimate the effects of individual- and area-level need, health resources, and sociodemographic factors on self-reported 12-month use of medical services for mental health reasons. Results: There was a 2.1% and 3.5% regional variation for general practitioner–family physician (GP–FP) and psychiatric health service use during 12 months, respectively. Most of the regional variation observed was explained by number of physicians per health region and regional and individual need factors. Adults who were middle-aged, had a post-secondary education, low-income, were separated, widowed, or divorced, and Canadian-born were significantly more likely to use GP–FP and psychiatry services for mental health reasons at the individual level, even after adjusting for area- and individual-level need factors. Conclusions: Most area-level variation was explained by the availability of health region resources and individual-level need factors. After accounting for need, numerous sociodemographic factors retained their association with use of mental health services. Additional efforts are needed at the area and individual level to reduce inequities through appropriate targeted care.
Alleviating the disability challenges experienced by people with impairments is increasingly seen as an important step towards building more inclusive societies. The very definition of disability has evolved to shift the burden from people with impairments to perform at ‘‘normal’’ competency levels and towards a fuller recognition of the ways that society can either build or tear down barriers that hinder their full participation in society. The objective of this paper is to investigate the factors that act as facilitators or barriers to participation by people with impairments. Specifically, the study is conducted within the context of employment status and commute distance, two outcomes indicative of the ability of individuals with impairments to engage society. Analysis is based on Canada’s 2006 Participation and Activity Limitation Survey, a post-censal survey that collects information on various aspects of disabilities for a representative sample of Canadian society. The results, based on a probit model for employment status and a regression model for commute distance, provide insights into the personal, economic, and living space factors that affect the probability of being employed and traveling longer distances.
Background: Little is known about the dietary habits of people with optimal body weight in communities with high overweight and obesity prevalence. Objective: To evaluate carbohydrate intake in relation to overweight and obesity in healthy, free-living adults. Design: We used a cross-sectional analysis. Subjects/setting: The Canadian Community Health Survey Cycle 2.2 is a cross-sectional survey of Canadians conducted in 2004-2005. There were 4,451 participants aged18 years and older with anthropometric and dietary data and no comorbid conditions in this analysis. Main outcome measures: Outcome variables were body mass index (BMI; calculated as kg/m2) and overweight or obesity status (dichotomous) defined as BMI _25 compared with BMI _25 based on measured height and weight. Diet was evaluated by 24-hour dietary recall based on the Automated Multi-Pass Method. Statistical analyses performed: Weighted regression models with bootstrapping and cubic splines were used. Outcome variables were BMI and overweight or obesity, and predictors were daily nutrient intake. Adjustment for total energy intake, age, leisure time energy expenditure, sex, smoking, education, and income adequacy was performed. Results: Risk of overweight and obesity was decreased in all quartiles of carbohydrate intake compared to the lowest intake category (multivariate odds ratio quartile 2_0.63; 95% confidence interval: 0.49 to 0.90; odds ratio quartile 3_0.58; 95% confidence interval: 0.41 to 0.82; odds ratio quartile 4_0.60; 95% confidence interval: 0.42 to 0.85). Spline analyses revealed lowest risk among those consuming 290 to 310 g/day carbohydrates. Conclusions: Consuming a low-carbohydrate (approximately _47% energy) diet is associated with greater likelihood of being overweight or obese among healthy, freeliving adults. Lowest risk may be obtained by consuming 47% to 64% energy from carbohydrates.
Objective: To evaluate the relationship between energy available from sugar sweetened beverages (SSB) and total energy availability. Design: Ecological study using food availability data from 1976 to 2007 from the database of the Canadian Socio-Economic Information Management System. The average available total daily energy per capita (kJ (kcal)/d per capita) and percentage of energy from SSB (%E/d per capita) were calculated. A regression analysis was performed with average available total daily energy per capita (kJ (kcal)/d per capita) as the outcome and percentage of energy from SSB as the independent variable (%E/d per capita). Setting: Canada 1976–2007. Subjects: None. Results: Between 1976 and 2007, total available energy increased on average by 669 kJ (160 kcal)/d per capita, and energy from SSB by 155 kJ (37 kcal)/d per capita. Total available energy increased by 434 kJ (104 kcal)/d per capita for a one unit increase in average percentage of energy from SSB. Conclusions: Total available energy increased as the contribution of energy available from SSB increased. This increase was larger than that explained by energy availability from SSB alone. Reducing energy from soft drinks may contribute to larger reductions in total energy available for consumption.
One of the challenges in planning for obesity prevention is the dearth of relevant local data. We analyzed a large nationally representative data set, the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) 2.2, to obtain regional and local distributions of physical activity and diet using statistical and spatial techniques. CCHS 2.2 contains information on health status, diet, physical activity, and measured body mass index (BMI), collected from January through December 2004. The total sample size is approximately 35,000; for the Hamilton metropolitan area it is approximately 600. The analyses were limited to descriptive statistics stratified by age group (2–11 years old, 12–17 years old, 18 years and older) and sex. For continuous variables we computed weighted means, standard errors, and coefficients of variation using the bootstrap macro (BOOTVARE V3.1.SAS). For spatial analyses we used interpolation with inverse distance weighting. Analyses were conducted at the Research Data Center, McMaster University, using SAS Version 9 and ArcGIS 9.2, in compliance with Statistics Canada’s disclosure rules. Children 6 to 11 years old and 12 to 17 years old spent 2.6 and 5.8 hours per day, respectively, in sedentary activities. Children 2 to 11 years old consumed fruits and vegetables 5.3 times per day; however, 34 percent of that was from fruit juices, and 6 percent was from potatoes. Reported consumption of key nutrients such as fiber and saturated fat varied by neighborhood. We identified risk factors for obesity in the Hamilton population specific for age groups, sex, and location using a subset of national data. This information can guide programs and policies for obesity prevention at the local level.
Finding a job has become a critical challenge to many youth. Immigrant youth, who have been a key part of the global migrants, are particularly vulnerable when entering the job market of the host country due to various structural barriers. However, in both public policy discourse and research, their labour market experience tends to be overlooked. In this paper, we report the employment experience of recently arrived immigrant youth based on an analysis of the LSIC and findings of in-depth interviews of 82 immigrant youth in four cities in Canada. Our results reveal that recently arrived immigrant youth tend to work in lower-skilled employment, experience significant delays in finding employment, have difficulties with foreign credential recognition, and have fewer means to access to job markets.
This research focuses on those working weekends and also having a workweek of 20 hours or less, which we define as having a weekend-based short workweek (WBSW). The purpose of this paper is to examine the characteristics of workers with a WBSW, with emphasis on gender, family status, and work_life balance. To our knowledge, this is the first study examining work schedules having overlapping characteristics of both weekend work and part-time hours. The country of research for this study is Canada. We found that workers with a WBSW are more likely to be female, but less likely to be married or have dependent children. They are also more likely to be younger, less educated, less experienced, and low-waged. Nonetheless, job satisfaction among those with a WBSW is only slightly lower than those without one. Moreover, we found a group of older, married females with high job satisfaction notwithstanding having a WBSW. We presume that some have managed to balance the substantial work, economic, and family obligations that they face, but also wonder whether some have become resigned to their available employment options rather than having found decent work per se.
This paper examines whether flexible work schedules in Canada are created by employers for business reasons or to assist their workers achieve work-life balance. We focus on long workweek, flextime, compressed workweek, variable workweek length and/or variable workweek schedule. Statistics Canada’s 2003 Workplace and Employee Survey data linking employee microdata to workplace (i.e., employer) microdata are used in the analysis. Results show that more than half of the workers covered in this data have at least one of the five specified types of flexible work schedules. Employment status, unionized work, occupation, and sector are factors consistently associated with flexible work schedules. Personal characteristics such as marital status, dependent children, and childcare use are not significantly associated with flexible work schedules, and females are less likely to have a flexible work schedule than are males. Overall, results suggest that flexible work schedules are created for business reasons rather than individual worker interests.
This paper examines the availability of employer offered childcare and eldercare support in Canada. In addition, the associations between these support programs, gender and voluntary and involuntary part-time work are also examined. Using Statistics Canada’s 2003 Workplace and Employee Survey, results show that employer offered childcare programs exist in a very small number of workplaces, and eldercare support programs are almost nonexistent. Moreover, women are less likely than men to be offered family support programs. Voluntary and involuntary part-time workers are less likely to be offered family support programs than full-time workers. We argue that if individuals are going to receive assistance for childcare and eldercare, hat assistance is more likely going to come from the government as opposed to employers. We suggest publicly funded universal family support programs to assist workers.
Using Statistics Canada’s Workplace and Employee Survey (WES) data for 2003 and 2004, this research note addresses an important component of labour market retention by investigating whether the presence of workplace child care and elder care programs influences employees’ decision to quit. The key findings are as follows: (a) workplace elder care support is almost non-existent in Canada; (b) employees are more likely to remain with an organization that offers workplace child care support programs; and (c) those employees who actually use the workplace child care support are even more likely to stay with the organization. We suggest that future research should assess whether the particular support programs themselves ‘cause’ employees to stay, or whether there are other factors (within organizations offering these support programs) that account for the retention.
Although employer-supported training may be beneficial to all stakeholders, some workers have difficulty accessing it, and a surprising number of workers decline some or all of it when it is offered. We present a conceptual model that uses four categories to define workers according to whether or not they are excluded from, participate in and/or decline training. Our aim is to examine the characteristics of workers in each category in order to better inform public policy. The study utilizes the Statistics Canada’s 2005 Workplace and Employee Survey data set. We found that 44 percent of workers were ‘excluded’, in that they did not participate in nor decline employer-supported training. A further 47 percent took all the training offered to them (i.e. are ‘takers’), whereas 3 percent were ‘decliners’ because they declined all of the offered training. Finally, the remaining 6 percent are ‘choosers’ because they both took and declined some employer-supported training. Thus, 9 percent of Canadian workers declined some employer-supported training in 2005. This was 16 percent of those who were offered training. Consistent with existing literature and dual labour market theory, our descriptive and multivariate regression results indicate that individuals exhibiting the characteristics of ‘primary’ workers are more likely to access and are also more likely to decline training than their ‘secondary’ counterparts. Considering the importance of training, these results have significant social and policy implications.
Background: Research has shown strong links between parenting and child psychopathology. The moderating role of child gender is of particular interest, due to gender differences in socialization history and in the prevalence of psychiatric disorders. Currently there is little agreement on how gender moderates the relationship between parenting and child psychopathology. This study attempts to address this lack of consensus by drawing upon two theories (self-salience vs. gender stereotyped misbehaviour) to determine how child gender moderates the role of parenting, if at all. Methods: Using generalized estimating equations (GEE) associations between three parenting dimensions (hostile ineffective parenting, parental consistency, and positive interaction) were examined in relationship to child externalizing (physical aggression, indirect aggression, and hyperactivity-inattention) and internalizing (emotional disorder-anxiety) dimensions of psychopathology. A sample 4 and 5 year olds from the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY) were selected for analysis and followed over 6 years (N = 1214). Two models with main effects (Model 1) and main effects plus interactions (Model 2) were tested. Results: No child gender-by-parenting interactions were observed for child physical aggression and indirect aggression. The association between hostile-ineffective parenting and child hyperactivity was stronger for girls, though this effect did not reach conventional levels of statistical significance (p = .059). The associations between parenting and child emotional disorder did vary as a function of gender, where influences of parental consistency and positive interaction were stronger for boys. Discussion: Despite the presence of a few significant interaction effects, hypotheses were not supported for either theory (i.e. self-salience or gender stereotyped misbehaviour). We believe that the inconsistencies in the literature regarding child gender-by-parenting interactions is due to the reliance on gender as an indicator of a different variable which is intended to explain the interactions. This may be problematic because there is likely within gender and between-sample variability in such constructs. Future research should consider measuring and modeling variables that are assumed to explain such interactions when conducting gender-by-parenting research.
Recent developments in the literature on the Portability of Human Capital have established the notion of negative returns to local education in foreign labor markets, based on empirical studies reported from the USA, Israel and The Netherlands. Using data from the 2006 Canada Population Census, this article formally tests the hypothesis of average negative returns to postsecondary education outside Canada, for a subset of the population with fields of study related to targeted occupations by the Canadian government, and finds a similar pattern to the one reported in the literature for other countries. Average negative returns to foreign education in the Canadian labor market are also observed for a representative sample of individuals completing their postsecondary studies in the USA, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and France.
Background: There is mounting concern over increasing rates of physical inactivity and overweight/obesity among children and adult in Canada. There is a clear link between the amount of walking a person does and his or her health. The purpose of this paper is to assess the health factors, socio-economic characteristics and urban-regional variations of walking to work among adults in Canada.
Methods: Data is drawn from two cycles of the Canadian Community Health Survey: 2001 and 2005. The study population is divided into three groups: non-walkers, lower-duration walkers and high-duration walkers. Logistic regression modeling tests the association between levels of walking and health related outcomes (diabetes, high blood pressure, stress, BMI, physical activity), socio-economic characteristics (sex, age, income, education) and place of residence (selected Census Metropolitan Areas).
Results: In 2005, the presence of diabetes and high blood pressure was not associated with any form of walking. Adults within the normal weight range were more likely to be high-duration walkers. Females and younger people were more likely to be lower-duration walkers but less likely to be high-duration walkers. There was a strong association between SES (particularly relative disadvantage) and walking to work. In both 2001 and 2005, the conditions influencing walking to work were especially prevalent in Canada’s largest city, Toronto, as well as in several small to medium sized urban areas including Halifax, Kingston, Hamilton, Regina, Calgary and Victoria.
Conclusion: A number of strategies can be followed to increase levels of walking in Canada. It is clear that for many people walking to work is not possible. However, strategies can be developed to encourage adults to incorporate walking into their daily work and commuting routines. These include mass transit walking and workplace walking programs.
Home care is the fastest growing segment of Canada’s health care system. Since the mid-1990s, the management and delivery of home care has changed dramatically in the province of Ontario. The objective of this paper is to examine the socio-spatial characteristics of home care use (both formal and informal) in Ontario among residents aged 20 and over. Data are drawn from two cycles of the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS Cycle 3.1 2005 and Cycle 4.1 2007) and are analyzed at a number of geographical scales and across the urban to rural continuum. The study found that rural residents were more likely than their urban counterparts to receive government-funded home care, particularly nursing care services. However, rural residents were less likely to receive nursing care that was self-financed through for-profit agencies and were more reliant on informal care provided by a family member. The study also revealed that women and seniors were far more dependent on services that they paid for as compared to informal services. People with lower incomes and poorer health status, as well as rural residents were also more likely to use informal services. The paper postulates that the introduction of managed competition in Ontario’s home care sector may be effective in more populated parts of the province, including large cities, but at the same time may have left a void in access to for-profit formal services in rural and remote regions.
This article investigates the association between sense of community belonging and health among settlements of different size and across the urban to rural continuum in Canada. Using data from the recent 2007/08 Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS), the objective is to identify the major health, social and geographic determinants of sense of community belonging and to consider policy options aimed at improving sense of belonging among certain segments of the population. The research found a significant and consistent association between sense of belonging and health, particularly mental health, even when controlling for geography and socioeconomic status. At the same time, sense of community belonging improved progressively across the urban to rural continuum with remarkably high levels of belonging evident in the outer most regions of Canada. Despite the health deficit that exists in rural and small-town Canada, the paper postulates that these communities are able to overcome health challenges to create conditions conducive to a positive sense of belonging. Overall, sense of belonging was also found to be highest among seniors, people residing in single-detached homes and among couples with children and was lowest among youth, residents of high- rise apartments and among singleparents. Finally, in the context of addressing deficiencies in sense of belonging, the paper examines several recent policy developments aimed at improving mental health services in Canada.
Background: An important but understudied component of Canada’s health system is alternative care. The objective of this paper is to examine the geographic and socio-demographic characteristics of alternative care consultation in Ontario, Canada’s largest province.
Methods: Data is drawn from the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS Cycle 3.1, 2005) for people aged 18 or over (n = 32,598) who had a consultation with an alternative health care provider. Four groups of consultations are examined: (1) all consultations (2) massage therapy (3) acupuncture, and (4) homeopath/naturopath. Descriptive statistics, mapping and logistic regression modeling are employed to analyze the data and to compare modalities of alternative health care use.
Results: In 2005, more than 1.2 million adults aged 18 or over consulted an alternative health care provider, representing about 13% of the total population of Ontario. The analysis revealed a varied geographic pattern of consultations across the province. Consultations were fairly even across the urban to rural continuum and rural residents were just as likely to consult a provider as their urban counterparts. From a health perspective, people with a chronic condition, lower health status and self-perceived unmet health care needs were more likely to see an alternative health provider. Women with chronic conditions such as fibromyalgia, high blood pressure, chronic fatigue syndrome and chemical sensitivities were more likely to see an alternative provider if they felt their health care needs were not being met.
Conclusions: The analysis revealed that geography is not a factor in determining alternative health care consultations in Ontario. By contrast, there is a strong association between these consultations and socio- demographic characteristics particularly age, sex, education, health and self-perceived unmet health care needs. The results underscore the importance of women’s health needs as related to alternative care use. The paper concludes that there is a need for more placespecific research that explores the reasons why people use specific types of alternative health care as tied to socio-economic status, health, place of residence, and knowledge of these treatments.
In this article we analyse the rates at which those admitted to hospital with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) receive aggressive treatment, assess how those rates have changed over time, and ask whether there is evidence of age discrepancies. Estimates made on the basis of data from an administrative database that includes discharges from all acute care hospitals in Ontario for selected years, from 1995 to 2005, indicate that there are strong and persistent age patterns in the application of medical technology. Results showed that to be true even after controlling for the higher rates of co-morbidities among older patients and variations across hospitals in practice patterns.
Variations in physician supply and how this impacts a patient's access and use of physician services remains a concern for many health care systems. This paper asks how the supply of physicians affects both the number of visits and the dollar value of services received from GPs and specialists? Results indicate the supply effect shows a 10% increase in GP supply is associated with an increase in GP use (from 0.9% to 1.2%) and a decrease in the use of specialist (from 1.0% to 1.3%). An increase in specialist supply of 15% is associated with a decrease in the use of GPs (from 0.6% to 0.8%) and an increase in the use of specialists (2.1%). The results suggest that unless patients face an absolute dearth of physicians, concerns about variations in physician supply are mitigated, as patients tend to substitute one physician type for the other.
This paper asks if the general population, asthmatics, and diabetics in Ontario, Canada, experience the same income related inequities in the use of physician services. The paper then goes on to decompose the inequalities into the different contributing factors. This paper makes two contributions to the literature using the concentration index approach by being one of the first study to: (i) use linked administrative-survey data to measure income-related inequalities in physician use; and (ii) combine the condition specific approach with the population-based approach.
Results for the general population are consistent with the previous literature: no income-related inequity in the probability of GP use; pro-poor income-related inequity in GP use (conditional on having any use), and a slight pro-rich income-related inequity in the probability and conditional use of specialists. Differences are found between the general population and the condition specific groups, but similar income-related inequities between asthmatics and diabetics. All three groups show more pro-poor inequity in conditional GP use for asthmatics than for the general population, and even more for diabetics than asthmatics. The general population shows pro-rich income-related inequity in the probability of specialist use, while asthmatics show no income-related inequity in the probability of specialist use and diabetics show a slight pro-rich inequity in the probability of specialist use. The general population shows a slight pro-rich inequity in the conditional use of specialists, while asthmatics and diabetics show no income-related inequity in the use of specialists. The decomposition analysis shows is the largest contributor to inequality of physician use among all groups is income.
This report presents preliminary results of research carried out under “The McMaster Pilot,” a datasharing arrangement between the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-term Care, Statistics Canada and the Statistics Canada Research Data Centre at McMaster University. We are grateful to the Ministry for making selected administrative data files available to the pilot and for its financial support. We also thank the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-term care for funding to the Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis, McMaster University. The authors alone are responsible for the views expressed herein.
Training (for workers) and innovation (for workplaces) are not free lunches. Both activities are also highly risky. From the viewpoint of the firm, training is also highly risky because there is uncertainty over the size of any future returns from employer- provided training. In the face of asymmetric information over the profitability of training, workers may trade present hour constraints (at the current wage) for train- ing (and future wage) opportunities. This set of reasoning implies that empirically we should observe a positive correlation between training and hour constraints at the individual level. I use two matched employer-employee datasets for Australia and Canada, to test some implications of this argument. This study finds a consistently positive impact of hours constraints on the workers' chances to receive training. Institutional differences and the differential appeal of outside option (option of exit- ing the labour force) in these two countries may contribute to explain the different patterns of this relationship in Australia and Canada.
A recent literature has argued in favour of a sizeable productivity en- hancing e¤ect of outsourcing. However, outsourcing implies the possibility of substituting away from internal labour services towards the employment of external workers in non-core activities of the firm. The effect of outsourcing on workers' training opportunities appears to be an empirical matter. Using a matched employer-employee survey for Australia and a range of econometric strategies that aim to control for selection on observables, I find robust evidence of large productivity enhancing-effects of outsourcing on workers' training, particularly for older workers.
This paper examines the effect of workplace-specific workforce casualization impacts on workers’ training opportunities. Workforce casualization is often conceived as a source of production flexibility. Non-casual workers may or may not reap part of the gains from production flexibility, depending on their bargaining power and there technological relationship with casual workers. The potential endogeneity of the focal explanatory variable, poses identification issues. Identification of the casual effect of casualization on training is achieved through rich information on the nature and extent of organizational change in the face of uncertain product markets. The main findings are that workforce casualization has a positive effect on the training chances of non-production workers, but leaves production workers with no gains, and potentially losses, in the distribution of the gains from casualization. A comparison between Canadian and Australian results highlights the business-cycle specific effect of casualization on training.
This paper examines promotion experiences of workers in non-standard employment as compared to those in regular full-time employment. Since females dominate non-standard employment, we analyse the female and male labour forces separately. Non-standard employment refers to regular part-time, temporary full-time, and temporary part-time employment. Data comes from the Workplace and Employee Survey (1999) of Statistics Canada. Results are generalized to Canadian workers. Results show that within the female labour force, workers in all three types of non-standard employment are less likely to be promoted than workers in regular full-time employment. Within the male labour force only those in temporary part-time employment are less likely to be promoted. Working in regular part-time or temporary full-time contracts has no impact on promotion for male workers. Overall results suggest that all three types of non-standard work adversely affect females’ promotion experiences but for males only for those in temporary part-time jobs are adversely affected.
Previous research indicates that mothers of ADHD children experience more emotional stress, anxiety and depression than mothers of non-ADHD children. The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of having an ADHD child on maternal well-being, and to assess whether there are differences for Canadian and U.S. mothers. Although, several researchers have investigated the relationship between parenting stress and the occurrence of ADHD, few studies have examined the importance of social support as a coping mechanism used to ease the maternal burden associated with raising an ADHD child. This research is unlike related studies, in that it focuses on social support as an important contributing factor of maternal well-being. Comparable data from the 2001 U.S. National Health Interview Survey and the 2002 Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth is used to examine the manners by which mothers utilize their informal social support networks as a means of dealing with various stressors related to childrearing. Given the differences in health care in the two countries, cross-cultural comparisons between the United States and Canada may produce a greater understanding of how mothers are impacted by an ADHD child. The central aim of this research is to document similarities and difference, and to use such findings as evidence for more effective policies to better assist mothers of ADHD children.
Using World Values Survey data from 1981-2004 and country-level data on economic development and religious attendance, this study investigates how individual income affects voluntary association membership across 55 countries. This study examines four different levels of membership: only active membership, only inactive membership, a mixture of active and inactive memberships and non-membership. Multilevel logistic regression reveals both individual and contextual-effects on voluntary association membership that differ for only inactive membership. As income doubles, individuals are 10% more likely to be active and inactive voluntary association members than non-members and 6.8% more likely to be only active members than non-members. Income has no significant effect on the likelihood of inactive membership only. In all models, the relationships between income and membership vary between countries. Contextual economic development and religious attendance cannot account for any of this variation but do explain some of the between-country variation in average levels of membership. Fixed effects of these variables are examined. The significance of the findings lie in their support for claims that: 1) economic disadvantage is having significant negative effects that could lead to further social marginalisation of poorer individuals and 2) differences exist between active and inactive membership that must be considered when investigating voluntary association membership.
The aim of this study is to assess how individual income levels and neighbourhood context affect voluntary association membership. Using data from the 2003 Canadian General Social Survey and a multi-level approach, the nature and extent of these effects is examined. Findings reveal both individual and contextual effects on voluntary association membership in Canada. A negative relationship was found to exist between neighbourhood poverty and voluntary association membership that held even after the inclusion of controls and individual income. Individual income is also found to moderate this relationship between neighbourhood poverty and voluntary association membership. The findings reinforce hypotheses about the importance of contextual influences on individual social behaviours and previous hypotheses that individual and contextual economic disadvantage negatively influence individuals in their capacity and ability to be active in voluntary associations and access the benefits that this membership holds.
A longitudinal sample of Canadian post-secondary students, 1997 to 2003, is used to examine the transitions and adjustments made during post secondary education (PSE). Separate analyses are conducted for students whose first program was bachelors level at a university and students in two (or more) year programs at a college or cegep. The proportions who do not complete their first PSE program; switch to other programs at the same, higher, or lower levels; or leave PSE are documented along with the outcomes of the second programs. Similarly, the proportions of graduates who enrol in second PSE programs at the same, higher, or lower levels are documented along with their outcomes. Regression analysis estimates correlates of students’ decisions to: a) leave their first program without graduating, b) attempt a second program at the same level, and c) attempt a second program at a lower level. Correlates include students’ family characteristics, living arrangements, high school grades, and loans for financing PSE.
Immigrant settlement patterns are inherently more dynamic and diverse than those observed at the time of the census. In particular, it is likely that the intended settlement pattern (the destination stated to Immigration officials at the time of entry) differs from the initial settlement pattern (the actual settlement location). At best, previous research has relied upon census data to illuminate these patterns, but only allowing a rough estimate of the dynamics of the system. As a result, spatial adjustments to the settlement process are only partially understood, with limited distinctions between recent and earlier arrivals, those who settled after a series of moves, or those that did not move at all after arrival. Using the recently released Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada (LSIC), this paper examines differences in the evolution of the settlement pattern of immigrants in their first six months in Canada, potentially illuminating differences between the intended and initial settlement patterns. The advantage of this file is its longitudinal nature, allowing settlement location of the same individuals to be traced over time. Results suggest that while mobility is high amongst the newest arrivals, the intended and initial destinations are largely equivalent.
The aim of this paper is to provide evidence on on-the-job training that occurs in the workplace and explore whether there are differentiated training experiences of workers based on workplace characteristics, employment status and personal characteristics. The objective is to examine the extent of on-the-job training and its determinants. We also explore reasons for workers to decline training. We focus on the incidence and the intensity of on-the-job training. The incidence refers to whether the worker received on-the-job training, and the intensity refers to the number of days the worker received on-the-job training. Industry, human capital, and collective agreement characteristics are included as control variables. The unit of analysis is the individual worker. The analysis uses Statistics Canada’s Workplace and Employee Survey (WES) 1999 data.
Results show that in 1999 only 30% of workers received on-the-job training. Among those receiving training, average days of training is about 7 days per worker. Computer software and professional training are the most common topics of on-the-job training. Workers receive on-the-job training mostly from their supervisor, followed by co- workers.
Multivariate analysis shows that small workplaces and those that have introduced innovation in the workplace provide on-the-job training. This is particularly the case for those small workplaces that have introduced innovation in the workplace. Neither implementing new information technology nor competition experienced by the workplace affects on-the-job training. In addition, there is not a strong differentiated on-the-job training experience of core and peripheral workers. Only, temporary full-time workers have lower incidence of on-the-job training as compared to regular full-time workers. There are no significant differences between women and men, Visible Minorities and Whites, Aboriginals and Whites, and immigrants and Canadian-born workers receiving on-the-job training.
In terms of the intensity of on-the-job training, none of the workplace size, implementing new information technology, innovation introduces in the workplace or competition experienced by the workplace affect time spent on on-the-job training. Employment status of working regular full-time or in a non-standard employment does not affect on-the-job training. In terms of the ascriptive characteristics of workers, gender and ethnicity are significant factors but immigrant status is not. In particular, females receive fewer days of training compared to male workers, and Aboriginals receive longer days of training compared to Whites.
Considering various methods of learning, workers give on-the-job training as the most helpful method. In 1999, nine percent of workers declined training when offered by the employer. Close to half of these workers gave being too busy with their job duties as their reason. Only 4% of those declined training gave family responsibilities as their reason for declining.
With the shrinking labour force, skills of those presently employed must be continuously developed and upgraded in order that they can contribute to the productivity and competitiveness of the Canadian economy now and into the future. Our results show that workplaces in Canada are under-investing in on-the-job training they provide to their workers.
Many of the ways to integrate older people into our communities are contingent upon whether they will age-in-place in their pre-retirement homes, make local moves within the community, or move to another community. As a result, policy analysts need to know more about residential mobility upon retirement, and how it may be changing with time. Using a life course theoretical perspective, this study compares how mid-life characteristics are related to residential mobility upon retirement for two different cohorts of Canadian men a generation apart, and compares men and women in the recent cohort. The data are from the Ontario Longitudinal Study of Aging (1959-1990) and the longitudinal portion of the National Population Health Survey (1994-1998).
The results from the multi-variate proportional hazards models indicate that home ownership remains an important determinant of residential mobility shortly after retirement for both men and women. However, relationships between residential mobility and the presence of children, family contact, occupation, education, and age at retirement which were found for the earlier cohort of men, were not found for the more recently retired men or women. Marital status and income were found to have a relationship with residential mobility for the recently retired women, but not for men. More differences were found between the generations of men shortly after retirement, than between recently retired men and women within the same generation.
Background: Gender differences in exposure to social resources play a significant role in influencing gender inequalities in health. A related question – and our focus - asks if these inequalities are also influenced by gendered vulnerabilities to social forces. Specifically, this paper examines the differential impact of social forces on the health of elderly (65+) men and women.
Methods: Multiple linear regression analysis is used to estimate gender differences in the influence of socio-economic, lifestyle, and psychosocial factors on both self-rated health and functional health using data from the 1994-1995 National Population Health Survey.
Results: Key findings include: 1) the relationship between income and health is stronger for older women, whereas the converse holds for education; 2) having an acceptable body weight is positively associated with health for elderly women only; 3) social support has a beneficial effect on health for older women only, yet women who are married/living common-law have poorer health than women living alone; and 4) stress-related factors are stronger determinants of health for older women.
This paper examines benefits coverage among regular full- time, regular part-time, temporary full-time, and temporary part-time workers and asks whether there are significant differences in benefits coverage within non-standard workers, i.e. those in the latter three categories. Statistics Canada’s Workplace and Employee Survey (1999) data is used for the analysis. Results suggest that regular full- time workers are more likely to receive benefits than all others, followed by those in regular part-time and temporary full-time employment contracts. As expected, temporary part-time workers have the lowest benefit coverage, suggesting that they are the most marginalized within non-standard employment.
Between 1970 and 1986 all Canadian provinces introduced some version of a prescription drug benefit plan for those age 65 or over and since 1986, all the provinces have increased copayments or deductibles on these plans to some degree. In earlier work, we have used the public-use Family Expenditure Survey to examine the changes in household out-of-pocket prescription drug expenditure associated with the introduction of these plans and with the cutbacks. We particularly examined the relative effects on households of different economic circumstances, which we measure by level of total consumption or outlay (excluding expenditures on automobiles and recreational vehicles).
The current research uses the Family Expenditure Survey master file, which has the additional information of province of residence (rather than region of residence) and includes 1978 and 1982 prescription drug expenditure. Our findings with this more detailed sample are consistent with our earlier research: it appears as if the onset of provincial senior prescription drug plans is associated with a larger dollar reduction in the out-of-pocket prescription drug expenditure among high-total-outlay households than among low-total-outlay households such that the change in prescription drug budget share is about the same.
A new finding is that the estimated associated reduction in prescription drug budget share is greater in households with high prescription drug budget shares. However, among high- prescription-use households, the prescription drug budget share reductions in low-total-outlay households are only slightly larger than those in high-total- outlay households. In this research we also examine changes in prescription drug expenditure in the nonsenior population when programs for the nonsenior population are introduced: the evidence is not as clearcut as in the senior case, although the quantile regression evidence is very similar.
This paper explores the earnings of graduates of community college and university undergraduate programs of different fields of study. There are two goals of this study. The first goal is to determine whether technical and applied community college programs provide their graduates with higher earnings opportunities than do the so-called "softer" liberal arts programs. The second goal is to examine the economic implications of obtaining an additional postsecondary credential that is not designed to be a continuation of the first credential, a practice known as "recycling." Comparisons by field of study are investigated.
For the years 1981 to 1997 the Survey of Consumer Finances served as the main source of information about the earnings of individuals, households and families. The Survey of Labour Income Dynamics, begun in 1993, was intended to replace and to improve upon the SCF. The Labour Force Survey began releasing earnings information in 1997 (the last year of the SCF) is a second alternative for extending historical earnings data to the present day.
This paper examines the extent to which either of these two surveys can be used to extend the SCF series to more recent times. Neither survey comes off as satisfactory in all respects as an extension of SCF earnings data though if one's purposes are more limited, such as studying the education premium, then merging results from the SCF and SLID seems a reasonable way to proceed. It is not possible here to assess the ability of SLID or LFS to extend the SCF for other applications. But this method could easily be adapted to address other similar questions.