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Mixed findings characterize the literature on skills and economic distributions within and across countries. The Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) offers new, internationally comparable data on literacy, numeracy, and digital problem-solving skills that can be combined with wage information. This paper presents statistical analyses, aimed at quantifying the contributions of observable and unobservable contributors to earnings inequality. Substantial inequality is documented across countries and skill measures, thus reinforcing previous findings that skill, even by the broader definition used here, is only a partial explanation for differences in economic inequality across countries. The paper concludes with future research possibilities that can further understandings of inequality dynamics within and across nations. [The original version of this paper was commissioned by American Institutes for Research (AIR), funded through a contract with the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).]

This paper characterizes vulnerable workers in Canada and the federal jurisdiction, based upon characteristics such as employment status, demographic characteristics, and job characteristics, and identifies areas in which labour standards may have a role. Based on this analysis, the paper evaluates the potential for labour standards to address economic vulnerability, focusing on labour standards policies aimed at wages and benefits, hours, and employment arrangements. In addition, the analysis considers the extent to which labour standards are likely to reach vulnerable workers. The results suggest several potential roles for labour standards and highlights policy implications.

Ample evidence indicates that a person's human capital is important for success on the labor market in terms of both wages and employment prospects. However, unlike the efforts to identify the impact of school attainment on labor-market outcomes, the literature on returns to cognitive skills has not yet provided convincing evidence that the estimated returns can be causally interpreted. Using the PIAAC Survey of Adult Skills, this paper explores several approaches that aim to address potential threats to causal identification of returns to skills, in terms of both higher wages and better employment chances. We address measurement error by exploiting the fact that PIAAC measures skills in several domains. Furthermore, we estimate instrumental-variable models that use skill variation stemming from school attainment and parental education to circumvent reverse causation. Results show a strikingly similar pattern across the diverse set of countries in our sample. In fact, the instrumental-variable estimates are consistently larger than those found in standard least-squares estimations. The same is true in two "natural experiments," one of which exploits variation in skills from changes in compulsory-schooling laws across U.S. states. The other one identifies technologically induced variation in broadband Internet availability that gives rise to variation in ICT skills across German municipalities. Together, the results suggest that least-squares estimates may provide a lower bound of the true returns to skills in the labor market.

This paper reports on the design, methodology, and results of a study of quality in 326 classrooms in 239 Canadian child care centers. This study, the largest and most extensive ever undertaken in Canada, used the Caregiver Interaction Scale (CIS) to rate the adult-child interactions in the classrooms and the Infant-Toddler Environment Rating Scale (ITERS) and the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Revised (ECERS-R) to measure the quality of classroom learning environments. The observed staff members completed questionnaires on wages, working conditions, and satisfaction levels, and the center directors also completed questionnaires on center operations and finances. Path analyses revealed that in the infant/toddler rooms the number of adults in the observed classroom and the education level of the observed staff member were direct predictors of quality. In addition, there were three indirect predictors: parent fees, adult:child ratio, and use of the center as a student teacher practicum site. There were five significant direct predictors in the preschool classrooms: wages, education level, number of staff in the observed room, staff satisfaction, and whether the center received free or subsidized rent or utilities. The three indirect predictors were auspice, adult:child ratio, and parent fees. The interaction of distal and proximal factors is interpreted and applied to the development and implementation of public policy initiatives that can provide much-needed improvement to the overall mediocre levels of child care quality in Canada.

Gender discrimination and wage inequity remain problems worldwide. In the United States and Canada, where equal rights and protective legislation have been in place for nearly 40 years, glaring disparities in salaries and job opportunities remain. Similar problems have been studied in the United Kingdom, leading to enactment of the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act and the Equal Pay Act. Paradoxically, data from the 2000 U.S. Census show that the more education women achieve, the worse the salary gap becomes, especially for women with advanced degrees. Legislation that has increased educational opportunity, funding, and access for women such as Title IX is coming under attack as being biased against males. This attack is occurring even though Title IX has not yet accomplished the equitable treatment it was intended to achieve. Strategies to address pay equity include support of new legislation, such as comparable worth measures like those that have been implemented in the United Kingdom, and support and strengthening of existing legislation (Title IX, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Equal Pay Act of 1963). Tools that empower women to address these problems and urge employers to correct inequities in employment from points of first access, preparation for pursuit of merit awards, to pursuit of promotion, and internal and external networking are highlighted in this article. (Contains 74 footnotes.)

The different life paths of the generation following immigration have become a matter of public discussion and scholarly research in the past decades in many migrant-receiving countries. These differences would be key points for the immigration decision made by first-generation immigrants. This paper adopts a new perspective to study the differences in task supplies and economic status between natives and two generations of immigrants to see their different life paths. This paper estimates differences in task supply and earnings between natives and immigrants in 1970 and 2015, which are the beginning and end of the fifth (and current) wave of immigration to Canada. Furthermore, using a three-fold Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition, I link the average weekly wage of workers to their task productivity, and try to find the effects of the returns to tasks as well as different task supplies on the average wage gap between natives and immigrants. Finally, I use ordered probit and logit models to demonstrate and measure the significant effects of immigrant status on an employee's labour market segment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – Does religiosity impact wages differently for males and females? Does the impact on wage of different dimensions of religiosity, namely the importance of religion, the frequency of religious practice with others and individually, differ for men and women? The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – Using the Canadian Ethnic Diversity Survey, made public in 2004, this paper investigates whether there are evidences for a gender difference in the impact of religiosity on wage. A Mincerean wage regression is estimated using both multiple linear regression and Heckit. Findings – Religious females are found to receive a premium over their labour earnings, through the frequency of private-prayer while the same dimension of religiosity penalizes males’ mean wage. The by-gender impact slightly widens for the subsample of employees, while it diminishes for the self-employed. Research limitations/implications – Making use of the most comprehensive data set available and standard methodology, the paper creates stylized facts that are of interest to the scholars of a multiplicity of disciplines. Practical implications – It advances the body of knowledge about the impact of religiosity on productivity and whether it has a by-gender component. Social implications – The research also informs policy-makers in their decision about the appropriate level of accommodation of religiosity in the workplace. Originality/value – The present work is the first research paper examining the by-gender impact of different dimensions of religiosity on productivity thereby wage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies performance differences between immigrants working in the regular Canadian labour market and those in the ethnic enclave sector of the economy. First, by studying the effects of education and race on the weekly wage earnings, I find that the returns to education are greater and being a visible minority carries less of a wage penalty for immigrants working in the regular sector compared with those in the enclave sector. Moreover, taking the AMEs (Average Marginal Effects) studies, I document different effects of education and race on both earnings and job segment for these two types of immigrants and propose an explanation. After this, I compute task supply and wage gaps between different types of immigrants in three census years to show differences in assimilation by immigration cohort. Finally, I use regression models to study immigrants' task supply and weekly wages so that we can have a fuller view of the differences in performance between immigrants working in the regular and enclave sectors. I also use these models to analyse differences between immigrants and natives in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nature of linkages between the industrial relations systems of Canada and the United States is hypothesized to depend on the strength of U.S. unions, which cover a majority of Canadian union members, and on the process of social comparison, which extends U.S. wage contours into Canada. A regression analysis, using data for Canadian manufacturing industries from 1957 to 1969, demonstrates the influence of wage changes in U.S. industries on wage movements in Canada. The paper concludes with an examination of the implications of wage linkages with the United States for economic stabilization policy in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using five cycles of a large nationally representative Canadian health survey, covering 2008 to 2012, the present paper examines the extent of labour earnings and household income gaps among gays, lesbians, and heterosexuals. The data used in this paper has the advantage of allowing for a direct classification of sexual orientation, through respondent self-identification. In accord with previous reports, this paper finds that homosexual females holding fulltime employment earn statistically significantly above comparable heterosexual females. Homosexual males with fulltime employment, on the other hand, are found no different in their earnings, from otherwise identical heterosexual males. When household income is considered, data reveal that lesbian households have statistically significantly lower incomes compared with otherwise identical gay households, who outearn heterosexuals as well. This pattern, not previously reported for Canada but observed in some other countries, is likely due to the combined effects of the general gender wage gap, the fading of homosexual males’ wage penalty, and the existence of two male income earners in a gay male household. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Economics is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

BACKGROUND: Many people living with mental illness want paid work, but finding and maintaining mainstream employment remains challenging. In recent decades, social enterprises have emerged as one alternative site for paid employment. Existing research has examined the experiences of people with mental illness working in social enterprises, but less is known about the organizational character of these workplaces. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this paper is to develop a better understanding of social enterprises as organizational contexts for workers with mental illness. METHODS: The research employed a qualitative methodology, conducting semi-structured interviews with executive directors and managers at 42 organizations operating 67 social enterprises across Canada RESULTS: While there are strong similarities in organizational mandate to create meaningful employment there are also important variations between social enterprises. These include variations in size, economic activity and organizational structure, as well as differences in hours of work, rates of pay and the nature and extent of workplace accommodation. These variations reflect both immediate organizational contexts as well as broader economic constraints that enterprises confront. CONCLUSIONS: Understanding the varied nature of social enterprises is important for thinking about future enterprise development, and the capacity of such organizations to create meaningful employment for people living with mental illness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theory developed in this paper integrates the effects of three factors — the relative supply elasticities of skilled and unskilled labor, adjustments in skilled labor hiring standards, and the presence of fixed employment costs for skilled labor — on the response of skill differentials to demand variation. The analysis suggests that the short-run behavior of the skilled wage differential is not predictable — an increase (or decrease) in the rate of economic activity may widen or narrow the skill differential or leave it unchanged. It is also argued that any initial impact of demand variation on the skill differential will subsequently be reversed, either partially or fully. Empirical estimates for the Canadian manufacturing sector over the period 1953–72 are generally consistent with the theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Economics is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Economics is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The misclassification of employees and the use of unpaid "internships" as a means of avoiding protective employment legislation has become a serious concern in recent years. Yet there is a dearth of legislative and regulatory guidance in Canada to assist in determining who is a "true volunteer," as distinct from a misclassified employee, for the purposes of employment standards legislation. While there is a substantial jurisprudence on the boundary between employees and independent contractors, the criteria applied in that jurisprudence are of little utility in identifying a true volunteer. The same can be said of cases arising under workers' compensation, human rights or tax legislation, since those cases were decided in a different legislative context, and on the basis of considerations that may not apply here. This paper sets out a framework to define a "true volunteer" for the purpose of exclusion from employment standards legislation, and thus to provide a reference-point by which to adjudicate claims of misclassification. There is near-universal acceptance of the idea that the work of a volunteer should be unpaid. The author goes further, however, and argues in favour of a narrower definition -- one that includes the "motive element" (i.e. the work must be undertaken for humanitarian, civic, charitable or similar reasons) -- and that also takes into account the nature of the organization (i.e. the work must be done in the not-for-profit sector). In the author's view, this tripartite approach -- the unpaid principle, motivation, and not-for-profit organization -- would provide a workable legal definition of the true volunteer that is consistent with both encouraging socially beneficial volunteerism and reducing the scope of misclassification in the workplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Do exporters and foreign-controlled establishments pay their workers higher wages than non-exporters and domestic-controlled establishments? This paper draws on an employer-employee data set to explore the existence of exporter and foreign-owned wage premiums in the Canadian manufacturing sector. Results from wage regression models reveal that, on the whole, exporters and foreign-controlled plants do pay higher wages than non-exporters and domestic-controlled plants. These results hold even after controlling for other plant and worker characteristics, although the wage differentials are substantially smaller. Furthermore, while the impact of foreign ownership on wages is found to be widespread across industries and regions, that of exporting is not. At the industry level, the wage effects of export-market participation are strongest for workers in plants belonging to scale-based industries; regionally, they are strongest in Quebec and British Columbia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the substitutability or complementarity between Canadian-born and immigrant workers. These are examined by estimating a set of wage equations using a generalized Leontief production function. The paper finds that, in general, there is no displacement of Canadian-born workers by immigrants. Recent immigrants affect the native-born positively, while older immigrants are neither substitute nor complement for natives. However, the effects differ across industries. Overall, the evidence that immigrants harm the opportunities of native-born workers is scant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Industrial Relations / Relations Industrielles is the property of Universite Laval, Department of Industrial Relations and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Scholarship on‘flexible’ work and changing organizational cultures has had little to say about the implications of these developments for disabled people. Drawing on in-depth interviews, this paper examines the ways in which disabled workers struggle over accommodations in contemporary workplaces. Analysis reveals a number of themes concerning training, speed at work, and emotional and aesthetic labour. At their core, these themes concern the ability of workers to exercise control over the labour process. Efforts to obtain accommodation are frustrated by multiple strategies that include people's propensity to self-discipline in the interests of achieving a valued identity through paid work. The paper argues in conclusion that accommodation, as both discourse and practice, offers a conceptual resource for rethinking contemporary employment with implications for both disabled and non-disabled workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intergenerational earnings regression among Canadian men is nonlinear: middle-earning families experience slower regression. This pattern appears to confirm economic models of educational choice with credit constraints. This paper reexamines the economic model and finds no connection between credit markets and earnings regression nonlinearities. In particular, credit constraints need not produce concavity and concavity does hot imply credit market failure. Despite the invalidity of the test data availability will likely lead to continued research along this path. The paper proposes an amended test using quantile regressions. Applied to Canadian data, the simple liquidity constraint conclusion is rejected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, neoliberal governments embarked on austerity programs that include reducing public services, imposing public sector wage restraint, and reorganizing public sector working conditions and labour relations. In this context of economic crisis and austerity, populism has risen across North America and Europe on both the right and left of the political spectrum. The rise of right populism in particular confronts unions with key organizational and strategic challenges as neoliberal governments seek to mobilize right populist discourses in their efforts to restructure work and labour relations. Using a socio-geographic framework, and based on an examination of post-2008 legislative and policy measures undertaken at the federal, provincial, municipal levels in Canada, this paper explores the nexus between 'uneven austerity', rising populism, and union strategic capacities. We examine this intersection of austerity and populism at multiple scales to reveal the implications for organized labour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the implications that the conceptualization and measurement of poverty have for policies that aim to improve the health of Canadians. In recent years, poverty has been identified as an issue of policy importance within the health sector in Canada. Policy makers are recognizing that efforts to improve the health of Canadians are related to the development and implementation of policies that decrease the proportion of people who live in poverty. At the same time, the Statistics Canada Low-Income Cut-Offs (LICOs), which are the most commonly used tool for measuring poverty in Canada, are being called into question. One of the most frequently cited criticisms of the LICOs is that they are too high, and as such do not measure poverty. Critics who argue that the LICOs are too high disagree with the relative conceptualization of poverty which underlies the LICOs. In this paper, we discuss the LICOs, their underlying assumption that poverty is relative in nature, and the criticism that the LICOs are too high. In addition, we discuss the Sarlo/Fraser Institute poverty lines, which are based on the assumption that poverty is absolute in nature. The manner in which poverty is conceptualized and measured has implications for the types, characteristics and ultimately the success of policies that are developed to reduce poverty and its effect on health. We argue that the success of efforts to enhance the health of Canadians with a reduction in poverty depends on a commitment by policy makers to a relative conceptualization and measurement of poverty. We further contend that policy makers in the health sector cannot independently reduce poverty and its detrimental effects on health. The complex nature of poverty indicates the need for policy makers in the health sector to work collaboratively with their counterparts from a broad range of government and non-government sectors to develop an innovative network of social assistance, economic and employmen... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we present a comparative analysis of earnings inequality during the 1980s among prime age men who headed households and worked year-round, full-time from five industrialized countries--Canada, Sweden, Australia, West Germany, and the United States. The data were obtained from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) database, a multinational collection of microdata sets from various countries which have been assembled for the primary purpose of making cross-national comparisons of economic and social well-being. The results of the comparison indicated that during the mid-1950s, the United States had the most unequal distribution of earnings and Sweden the least unequal. Between the early 1980s and mid-1980s, however, the earnings distributions in all five countries showed evidence of becoming more unequal, especially in the United States, Canada, and Sweden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses microdata from the 1986 Statistics Canada Family Expenditure Survey to demonstrate that inequality-sensitive poverty measures such as the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke (1984) index are as sensitive to the equivalence scale embodied in the poverty line as the more frequently used head count and poverty gap measures. Indices of the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke variety are useful, however, for revealing demographic subgroups experiencing extreme deprivation, information not provided by the more standard poverty measures. The paper also demonstrates that our understanding of the relative poverty experiences of important demographic subgroups such as children and the elderly can be influenced by our choice of equivalence scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]