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Since its original formulation, various extensions of the Kuznets hypothesis have been proposed. In this paper, we make use of a unique panel dataset of Canadian regions to test whether inter‐personal income inequality increases once the initial inverted‐U pattern is completed. Our results support the notion of a sideways S‐shaped curve describing a wavelike decrease to increase shift, with a turning point in the late‐1990s/early‐2000s where inter‐personal inequality across regions "bottoms out" before alternating to an upward‐sloping trajectory. While there are many factors associated with this reversal of trends, we find evidence that a region's size plays a role in explaining the more recent rise in inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much has been written recently about the rise of within‐country inequality and growing imbalances of regional fortunes in the United States and the European Union. In this paper, we apply a novel geo‐visualization technique that combines local indicators of spatial association with directional statistics to a unique dataset in order to explore the spatial dimensions of regional income inequalities in Canada from 1981 to 2016. After describing a pattern of growing spatial divergence among regions, we briefly discuss the need for the federal government to explore new types of place‐sensitive development policies. Key Messages: A novel geo‐visualization technique is used to track the evolution of regional inequalities in Canada.The implications of growing spatial divergence in regional trajectories of inequality are briefly discussed.Particular emphasis is placed on the need for the federal government to revisit its regional development policy approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The last two decades have witnessed a considerable growth in the literature focusing on LGBTQ2S+ employment, labour market inequality, and income. During the same period, Canada has emerged as a trailblazer in employment protections for both sexual and gender minorities. Unfortunately, the Canadian literature on LGBTQ2S+ employment outcomes and experiences is disperse and underdeveloped. Objective: This paper brings together this disperse research and provides the first systematic review of Canada’s LGBTQ2S+ employment and earnings literature. Methods: We start with a systematic review and thematic synthesis of the broadly defined literature on LGBTQ2S+ poverty in Canada. We use a thematic synthesis to isolate the LGBTQ2S+ literature on employment, labour market inequality, and earnings. Our search of electronic databases took place in April 2018 and was updated in January 2019. Results: A total of 532 abstracts and full texts were screened by reviewers, which resulted in 84 articles included in our final sample. These articles were then sorted by keywords and those pertaining to employment, labour market inequality, and income (n = 31) were included in this analysis. While estimates of sexual minority wage gaps vary depending on the data and methods used, most studies have found wage penalties for gay men and wage premiums for lesbians, relative to their heterosexual counterparts. The literature on bisexual employment is particularly scant but finds that bisexual men and women also earn less than their heterosexual counterparts. Research on the subjective workplace experiences of LGBTQ2S+ individuals find unique challenges, barriers and, at times, exclusion from the Canadian labour market. Conclusions and implications: While the literature on LGBTQ2S+ employment outcomes and experiences in Canada is growing, much is left unknown. The principal limitation for researchers continues to be the dearth of population-based surveys that include questions on sexual orientation, gender identity, and relevant employment characteristics. To date, few studies have explored employment outcomes or the subjective workplace experiences of bisexuals, transgender, two-spirit or other gender minority peoples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses and describes measures of poverty and, on the basis of that discussion, proposes a public policy response that more closely and more easily targets income support to where it is most needed and most effective. Our review of poverty measures shows there are many holes that prevent advocates and policy-makers from obtaining a clear picture of who is in poverty and the depth of that poverty. The Market Basket Measure is the most finely tuned to identifying where impoverished families live and that is in large part why it was recently adopted by the federal government to gauge its anti-poverty policies. The government of Alberta, on the other hand, evaluates its policies using a measure of poverty that allows no consideration that costs of living might vary by community. Social assistance is the main policy instrument through which the federal and provincial governments provide assistance to people in need. We show that the growing emphasis of increasing social-assistance support via child benefits provides no increase in support in what has been for some time the majority of social-assistance cases. What's more, despite a great deal of evidence that the cost of meeting basic needs varies widely by community, the amount of assistance provided is the same regardless of where one lives in the province. We propose a modification to how social assistance is provided that makes allowances for the fact poverty is deeper in some parts of the province than others and that provides support to individuals and families whether or not they have children. Our proposal is superior to rent control as a means of dealing with falling housing affordability, removes barriers to people receiving social assistance from moving to seek employment, and has features similar to a guaranteed basic income. It is also inexpensive. We estimate the cost of our proposal to be equivalent to less than one per cent of the provincial health-care budget. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transferring income to families with children has long been a basic Canadian social policy. Though motivated by a range of goals, a central expectation has been that higher family income will lead to better child outcomes, especially in low-income families. This paper presents a synthesis of Canadian research estimating the effect of household income on measures of child development and well-being. While child outcomes and socioeconomic status (SES) are highly correlated, the effect of income on child outcomes, controlling for other SES factors, is found to be statistically significant but of much smaller magnitude than correlation alone indicates. The paper also discusses key theoretical and methodological issues in this area of research, identifies areas for future research, and draws implications for public policy design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the results of the Government of New Brunswick's pay equity program for the non-legislated private sector. The analysis was conducted on behalf of the New Brunswick Coalition for Pay Equity in order to determine if the Province's pay equity process for women working in female-dominated employment sectors was just and equitable. Through a review of the relevant documents and literature, the paper highlights major issues with New Brunswick's pay equity exercise. Using case study, the paper draws attention to and raises questions about significant methodological problems that negatively impacted the results of the pay equity exercise for the participating sectors. While research has been conducted on pay equity legislation in other Canadian jurisdictions, there is a paucity of literature that examines the effectiveness of pay equity exercises in New Brunswick. The paper concludes with recommendations for an equitable pay equity exercise for employees working in traditionally female-dominated jobs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada’s old age security (OAS), a flat-benefit public pension, is internationally lauded as an accessible and effective safety net for seniors. This paper explores discrepancies in OAS uptake using Canadian Census data from 1996 to 2011. Our findings demonstrate disparities in OAS uptake based on immigration status, language proficiency, and visible minority status, disputing claims of “universal” OAS provision. Multivariate analyses confirm a strong “immigrant effect,” with being in Canada for 20 years or less leading to lower rates of OAS utilization. They also confirm that those not proficient in Canada’s official languages are less likely to receive OAS benefits. However, the influence of racialized minority status is found to be spurious; after controlling for immigration status and official language proficiency, many racialized minority senior groups have higher odds of receiving OAS than White Canadians. We conclude with a brief discussion of the tradeoffs involved in considering a potential removal of OAS eligibility barriers for immigrants in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Income inequality is on the rise, and everyone, from President Obama and Pope Francis to Prince Charles and Standard & Poor’s, is talking about it. But these conversations about what are arguably the most significant changes in the distribution of incomes and earnings since the 1940s are leading to very different views on how public policy should respond. This is as true in Canada as it is in almost all of the other rich countries where inequality has risen. In this paper, I tell two stories about inequality—one from the perspective of those who feel it is not a problem worth the worry, and the other from the perspective of those who see it as the defining challenge of our time—to clarify the issues facing Canadians and what public policy should do about them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper uses sequential stochastic dominance procedures to compare the joint distribution of health and income across space and time. It is the first application of which we are aware of methods to compare multidimensional distributions of income and health using procedures that are robust to aggregation techniques. The paper’s approach is more general than comparisons of health gradients and does not require the estimation of health equivalent incomes. We illustrate the approach by contrasting Canada and the US using comparable data. Canada dominates the US over the bottom part of the bi-dimensional distribution of health and income, though not generally over the uni-dimensional distributions of health or income. The paper also finds that welfare for both Canadians and Americans has not unambiguously improved during the last decade over the joint distribution of income and health, in spite of the fact that the uni-dimensional distributions of income have clearly improved during that period. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Given the propensity of Canadians to migrate, it is likely that migration has a large impact upon the distribution and redistribution of income across regions. Such impacts may be magnified within the older population, as their relocation involves the transfer of nonearned income such as pensions, retirement investments, or other income supplements from province to province and so return migration to a province of birth following retirement subsidizes local economies. By using methods proposed by Plane in 1999, income-based versions of demographic effectiveness are applied to evaluate the movement of nonearned income in the Canadian context among Canada's older population. The analysis uses data drawn from the 2001 Canadian Census, and focuses upon the older population (aged 60+ in 2001) who reported nonearned incomes in 2000. The paper distinguishes between four types of nonearned income, including (i) Old Age Security and Guaranteed Income Supplements; (ii) Canada/Québec pension plan benefits; (iii) Retirement Investment income; and (iv) Investment Income. The objectives of the paper are twofold. First, it documents the movement of nonearned income between Canada's provinces, focusing upon the demographic effectiveness of the observed flows. Second, the paper explores the potential for primary, return, and onward migration to redistribute nonearnings income across Canada, and the significance of regional income redistributions by each type of migration. Results illustrate the importance of migration in transferring nonearned incomes over space, and the particular importance of return migration as a vehicle to redistribute nonearned income to economically depressed provinces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human capital policy has come to be seen as something of a panacea: acting both as a necessary input for modern growth and an effective tool for redistribution. Canada has moved strongly in the direction of linking redistribution and human capital investment. In this paper, I investigate the empirical evidence and theoretical arguments behind the claim that increasing skills investment opportunities and tying transfers to human capital investments while decreasing traditional income support will ultimately lead to a more equal, more just society. Whether this is true, of course, will depend on the notion of justice one adopts. One of my goals in this paper is to examine the implications of the kind of policy path Canada is following under different notions of fairness. I conclude that both empirical evidence and fairness considerations indicate that human capital policy does not make good redistributive policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Demographic change and policy reorientation are often conflated with economic and social changes in anticipating the social and policy implications of demographic aging. In this paper, an attempt is made to begin to disentangle these factors to gain a clearer sense of the implications of population aging for social and policy responses. Analyzed here are selected socio-economic changes that intervene in the connection of demographic aging to policy, such as actual working patterns by age, education to work timing, retirement patterns, productivity shifts, pension investment shifts, policy changes such as the move toward economic liberalism and away from redistribution and social protection, changing family patterns, and shifts among generations in terms of wealth inequality. These are related to shifts in demographic age structures. Data which are more illustrative than the analytical focus of the paper, come largely from various Statistics Canada sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we re-examine inequality in Canada with a comprehensive look at inequality trends in Atlantic Canada during the period 1969 to 1996. We use consumption expenditure as a measure of family well-being and compare it with the income-based measures of well-being. The results of this study reveal the following: (a) consumption distribution is more equal than the income distribution; (b) inequality trends are sensitive to how family resources are measured; (c) consumption inequality in Atlantic Canada fluctuated considerably until the mid-1980s; and (d) tax and transfer policies have played an important role in reducing income disparities in Atlantic Canada as well as in the rest of Canada. Overall, consumption inequality has continually been lower in Atlantic Canada in comparison to the rest of Canada. The paper also examines the role of key socio-demographic factors using a decomposition methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With its 2016 budget, the Government of Alberta laid out the basic details of the carbon tax rebate. The rebate is constructed to increase based on household size, and will decrease with income after a pre-set cutoff. The government has stated six in 10 households will be eligible for a full rebate, with an additional six per cent receiving a partial rebate. This paper examines the income distribution of Albertans, to determine how the rebate and income cutoffs affect different types of Alberta families. Using easily available data from Statistics Canada, we shed light on the question of who will receive a carbon-tax rebate. Based on 2013 data on median incomes, single-parent families, elderly families and single Albertans are all groups where a majority of households will receive rebates. In some cases, it appears well over 50 per cent of those groups will receive a full rebate. However, fewer than 50 per cent of Alberta families that are couples (with and without children) will receive a rebate. Still, even those that get a rebate will not necessarily exactly break even against the additional costs they incur from a carbon tax. Interestingly, the lowest-income households, which are most likely to qualify for a rebate, appear to be in a position where they will receive a larger refund than they will pay in carbon taxes. For households where incomes fall in the middle of the provincial distribution, the data suggest that the rebate will come close to compensating for additional costs of the carbon tax, although it may fall slightly short. The analysis presented below is a first pass at a very important question facing Albertans. When data from the 2016 census becomes available, we will be much better able to evaluate which Albertans will be eligible for the rebate. The census will enable a more precise evaluation of whether the rebate matches the government's 66 per cent goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There have been virtually no recent census-based studies on the familial characteristics of black Canadians. The present study is a partial replication and extension of a study on black families published two decades ago by Christensen and Weinfeld (1993) and based on the 1986 Canadian census. The present paper utilizes the 2006 census in order to examine the current conditions of black families in Canada and assess what has changed since 1986 in the composition, marital status, and income of these families. Findings indicate that black families are more culturally heterogeneous than ever. Despite this, racial disparities in family formation and household income have only accentuated since 1986, bearing unique consequences for native and foreign-born black men and women. On the whole, relatively more black Canadians 25-44 years of age were single and never married, divorced, or separated in 2006 than in 1986. Between 1986 and 2006, the disparities in income between black families with young children and the general population have grown larger, both for single and dual parent families. The consequences of higher family instability, lone-parent families, economic insecurity and poverty for black families can only be detrimental for the welfare of children, particularly in a context of racial inequality. These issues deserve to be further investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares recent developments in income inequality in Canada, Germany, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In addition to describing cross-national variation in changes in income inequality, the paper examines different explanatory factors for these recent developments. The findings reported indicate that there is substantial cross-national variation, not only with regard to the level of inequality, but furthermore with regard to changes in inequality. The results indicate that the equalizing effect of welfare state redistribution did not decrease in all countries. By contrast, in all countries there was a universal tendency towards increased inequality in the pre-tax and transfer distribution, although the magnitude of the change differs from country to country. Even though a polarization of the earnings distribution is reported, the results still give no support to cross-national convergence with regard to income inequality during the 1980s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the implication of the decision to give 2006 Census respondents the option of letting Statistics Canada access their income tax files rather than answering income-related questions directly. We find that giving respondents the option to share their income tax files (or not) adds a confounding factor when it comes to measuring family-income inequality, particularly for the bottom tail of the distribution. The consent decision does not, however, materially affect the estimation of standard wage equations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Occupy movement catalyzed public debate on the issue of growing income inequality. This paper examines recent patterns of inequality in Canada, paying particular attention to changes in the characteristics of the top 1% of income earners. At the national level, the gap between the top percentile and the other 99% has widened considerably: in 2006, 11% of the nation's income was concentrated in the hands of top earners (whose mean income of $344,000 is 11 times that of the average Canadian) compared with 7.7% just 15 years earlier. Beneath such national-level figures lie important geographical differences in the income hierarchy: the thresholds, average incomes and socio-economic characteristics of the top 1% vary widely across provinces and cities. Among the most important spatial shifts observed is the growing concentration of high-income groups in energy-rich Western Canada, where Calgary has become the most unequal city in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The discourse on immigrants' economic integration often assumes that the human capital of immigrants determines the outcome of successful integration, measured as income parity with the native-born population. This paper decomposes the employment earnings of immigrants and native-born Canadians in Canada to see how much of income disparity may be attributed to human capital factors and how much to other factors. The findings indicate that immigrants have brought high levels of human capital to Canada, often surpassing those of the native-born, but immigrants under-perform in earnings because of other unexplained returns. The findings suggest that there are limits in using immigrant selection policy to increase the human capital content of immigrants as a means to achieve successful economic integration, and that other policies that influence how immigrants, especially those of minority origin, are treated in the labour market should be considered as a means to bridge income disparity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on confidential data from some Censuses and examines the factors of inequality of earnings and of poverty relative to Canadian immigrants during the period of 1990 to 2006. The results of our analysis show that immigrants from developing countries have been the most harmed by economic fluctuations. They have less income than either native-born Canadians or immigrants from other countries; in addition, the return on their human capital has diminished between 1991 and 2006. The importance of migratory flux from developing countries has increased the social heterogeneity of the immigrant population, and has aggravated the inequality of income within the group of immigrants from the South as well as between them and other immigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effects of community characteristics on volunteering using data from two cycles of the Canadian Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating (2004 and 2007). Controlling for many individual factors, we find evidence that in 2004, volunteering was decreasing in population, income in equality, and shares of foreign-born residents. For 2007, there is no evidence that any of the community characteristics had significant effects, suggesting that Canada’s large communities were coping increasingly well with rising income inequality and birthplace diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considerable concern has recently been expressed worldwide about growing income inequality. Much of the discussion, though, has been in general terms and focused on the US experience. To understand whether and how Canada ought to respond to this development, we need to be clear on the facts. This paper documents Canadian patterns in income inequality and investigates the top 1 percent of earners-the group receiving the most attention. We summarize what is known about the causes of growing income inequality, including the role of gender wage differences. Finally, we outline policy options for reducing-or slowing the growth of-inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates changes in the distribution of earnings across 87 metropolitan areas in Canada. It does so using micro data taken from the 20 per cent long-form sample of the census for the years 1996, 2001 and 2006. Results point to overall increases in urban inequality and to greater heterogeneity in inequality across the urban hierarchy, with larger cities growing particularly unequal over time. Cross-sectional and panel regression models suggest that city size, unemployment, deindustrialisation and the percentage of a city’s population composed of visible minorities contribute to increased inequality. In contrast, a city’s level of economic development has a mitigating effect on inequality, although this effect appears to fade away over time. The effects of changes in a city’s age, education and gender profiles on inequality are mixed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Higher-income neighbourhoods in Canada’s eight largest cities flourished economically during the past quarter-century, while lower-income communities stagnated. This paper identifies some of the underlying processes that led to this outcome. Increasing family income inequality drove much of the rise in neighbourhood inequality. Increased spatial economic segregation, the increasing tendency of ‘like to live nearby like’, also played a role. It is shown that these changes originated in the labour market. Changes in investment, pension income and government transfers played a very minor role. Yet it was not unemployment that differentiated the richer from poorer neighbourhoods. Rather, it was the type of job found, particularly the annual earnings generated. The end result has been little improvement in economic resources in poor neighbourhoods during a period of substantial economic growth, and a rise in neighbourhood income inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Residents of Ontario aged 65 years and older are covered by a provincially funded prescription drug program. The aim of this paper is to assess the extent of inequity in prescription drug use for people eligible for Ontario Drug Benefit coverage, and to explore the different possible explanations for inequities. The analyses draw on the Canadian Community Health Survey from 2005, which is linked to pharmacy and Ontario Health Insurance Plan claims data. We model the number of therapeutically different prescription drugs and the total expenditures on medications on a set of health, demographic, and socioeconomic indicators, and we calculate the concentration index of income-related inequality in medicine use. The results show that low-income individuals who have enrolled in the reduced cost-sharing program on average use more medications than those with higher income, even after adjusting for a comprehensive set of health and demographic variables. While Ontario's public drug program appears to have ensured access to medications for low-income seniors, the results of this study raise concerns about the potential inappropriateness of medication use and point to a gap in drug policy in Ontario. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For a decade or so starting in the early 1990s, Canada's major income support programs underwent substantial reform. Meanwhile, the economy first lingered in a deep recession and then recovered with a period of strong growth. This paper focuses on how the distributional impact of Employment Insurance (EI) evolved during this period. We find that EI was strongly redistributive throughout the whole period with respect to the earnings of individuals, and somewhat less so for family income. But we also show that the distribution of benefits and contributions changed substantially over time, becoming less redistributive. Somewhat counter-intuitively, both the benefit and contribution sides of the program are shown to be redistributive, even though the contribution structure is regressive. These findings are relevant in the current context, as the economy struggles with a combination of high unemployment and fiscal pressures on government spending. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate the relationship between the substantial changes in tax and transfer programs and the movements in after-tax income inequality over the 1980s and 1990s. We show that in the 1980s, tax and transfer programs became more redistributive, offsetting substantial increases in market income inequality. In the 1990s, the tax and transfer system stopped undoing the increases in market income inequality, leading after-tax income inequality to rise. Even so, tax and transfer programs were more redistributive in 2000 than in the 1980s. Much of the changes occurred at the provincial level, with social assistance payments first increasing (in the late 1980s) then decreasing (in the late 1990s) and with surtaxes on high-income earners being first imposed and subsequently removed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the city-childcare connection. It analyzes licensed childcare spaces in Winnipeg, finding that inequity characterizes the distribution of childcare in all neighbourhoods. Poorer and more Aboriginal neighbourhoods are particularly disadvantaged, having less access and fewer services than more affluent and suburban areas. Overall, the distribution of spaces and services reveals systemic dysfunctions in the current childcare architecture. This failure is multi-scalar: while experienced at the local level, the originating causes are with higher orders of government. Urban justice is denied by childcare policy and delivery that reproduces and compounds neighbourhood dis/advantage. The conclusion problematizes both voluntary sector reliance and local political inaction, each of which carries implications for planners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper uses a comparative case study of Canada and the USA to argue that, in order to fully understand the associations between population health and the socioeconomic environment we must begin to place importance on the dynamic aspect of these factors—examining them as they evolve over time. In particular, for institutional and policy shifts that often unfold over decades, population health must attend to these big, slow moving processes by adopting a historical perspective to the knowledge base. We compare Canada and the USA on basic health outcomes and a range of determinants of health for which routine data have been collected for all or most of the period between 1950 and the present. During the analysis that follows, we are able to establish that, at the level of society (i) greater economic well being and spending on health care does not yield better health outcomes, that (ii) public provision and income redistribution trump economic success where population health is concerned, and (iii) that the gradual development of public provision represents the buildup of social infrastructure that has long-lasting effects on health status. Our case study shows what can be gleaned from a comparative perspective and a long-term view. The long view allows us to detect the gradual divergence in health status between these two societies and to trace potential institutional causes that would otherwise go unnoticed. The perspective introduced here, and in particular the comparison of Canada and the USA, provides strong support for the use of cross-national comparative work, and a historical perspective on the investigation of societies that successfully support population health. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper looks at changes in hourly wages and hours worked per week of prime-age males in different skill groups (measured by earnings quintile) in the United States and Canada from 1981 to 1997. The analysis reveals that increases in hourly wage inequality are primarily responsible for increases in weekly earnings inequality in both countries. Increases in the dispersion of hours worked per week play a more important part in explaining the increase in earnings inequality in Canada than in the United States. High-skill workers experienced increases in earnings growth due to increases in hours and, at least for the US, increases in wages. In contrast, low-skill workers experienced declines in earnings growth due to decreases in wages and hours. This evidence is consistent with a skill-biased demand shock. In Canada a larger percentage of the reduction in earnings of low-skill workers is accounted for by declining hours. This evidence suggests a higher degree of downward wage rigidity in Canada than in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

IN THIS PAPER, we Construct au index of the "cost of job loss" — defined as the income that a "representative worker" would lose upon being dismissed or laid off — in Canada between 1953 and 1985. Since this measure captures the monetary cost of unemployment, it is superior to the aggregate unemployment rate as an indicator of the relative bargaining power of capital and labour. Changes in the distribution of income between capital and labour are then considered. It is argued that with the decline in the cost of job loss between 1962 and 1973, the relative bargaining power of workers increased, and real wages rose accordingly. Subsequently, the cost of job loss has risen dramatically and real wages have fallen as capital has sought to restore conditions for rapid rates of accumulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]