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The motivation for my research is the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on wealth and income inequality in Canada, focusing on the factors that triggered these inconsistencies. Income inequality has been a concern recently, particularly following the global financial crisis of 2007-09 and the COVID-19 pandemic. Data show that this increase disproportionately in wealth affected low-income earners and younger people, while older individuals benefited from higher retirement income. These findings suggest the potential role of monetary policy in driving changes in income inequality and the extent to which monetary policy decisions reflect observed inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In several recent papers models have been developed to explain either why particular goods have been socialized or, more generally, the 'size of government.' In this paper we develop a version of these models to explain the decision in Canada to move to a system of socialized medical insurance to the mid-1960s. Income distribution data is then used to largely confirm that the model appears consistent as an explanation of the federal-provincial structure that has arisen and of the conflicts that have resulted. [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]

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]

This paper examines the empirical significance of the principle of compensating differentials for the occupational distribution of earnings in Canada. The estimated earnings equation relates differentials in earnings to differences in human capital investments of workers, training requirements, and other non-pecuniary characteristics of occupational employments. The evidence suggests that wage differentials are primarily 'equalizing differentials': workers receive higher pay in compensation for their higher schooling and work experience and for undertaking jobs that are risky, insecure, and require higher levels of general educational development and specific vocational preparation. The evidence also confirms the findings of hedonic wage equations that returns to schooling and experience may be biased when occupational requirements are not controlled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract. In this paper, the distribution of lifetime purchasing power for a large sample of Canadian households is examined. The study differs from most distributional studies in two ways. First, it annuitizes an estimate of lifecycle earnings and so is capable of encompassing variations in earnings which occur over the lifecycle. Second, it focuses on the joint distribution of income and wealth in that the annuity distribution generated incorporates both lifecycle earnings and net assets. The degree of inequality associated with the distribution of annuities is found to be less than that associated with the more traditional measures of inequality, such as the distribution of wealth or income or earnings. [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 study carries out a decomposition of Theil-entropy measures into a between-group component, based on factors such as education, age, gender, and marital status, and a component representing inequality within each group. We apply a bootstrapping technique to measures of inequality to enable statistical inference. Trends in household income inequality in Canada are investigated using data from 1991 to 1997 drawn from he Survey of Consumer Finance. We find an evident trend toward increasing inequality of household incomes between the years 1991-1997, during which the economy was recovering from a steep recession. Although most of the increase in measured inequality is attributed to the 'within-group' component, we find the change in 'between-group' inequality to be significant for education, age, and marital status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using decomposable measures of inequality and applying bootstrapping methods in order to draw statistical inference, gender-based earnings inequality in conjunction with education and immigration status in Canada is investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Income inequality in Canada has not changed significantly over the past two decades, though this apparent stability may be surprising in view of the major economic and social changes that occurred over this period. The share of income going to the bottom quintile remains at about four percent while the top quintile continues to receive about 40 percent of income. Social trends such as lower fertility rates have coincided with increased female labour force participation lo increase family incomes in the middle and upper-middle parts of the income spectrum. At the same time, the trend for baby boom children to establish their own separate households, and increased divorce and separation rates, have tended to create more small family units with low incomes. These social trends, in isolation of other factors, would have increased income inequality. However, economic factors have apparently offset these tendencies. Since employment income is concentrated in the middle and upper-middle ranges, the relative fall in this source of income over the past two decades tended to be equalizing. Similarly, the fact that a large part of total investment income accrues to the elderly who have below average income implies that the trend towards high interest rates has been equalizing. Finally, the social ‘safety nets’ put in place in the mid-1960s and early 1970s have grown in relative importance, and this too has had an equalizing impact on the distribution of income. Given the overall stability in income inequality, the equalizing tendencies of economic factors such as high interest rates and relatively slow economic growth, with the large automatic responsiveness of governments' social safety net programs, appear to have just about exactly offset the disequalizing social factors of ‘baby boomers’ leaving home, lower fertility, higher divorce and separation rates, and higher female labour force participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]