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Purpose: This paper reports on Canadian research that examined the cost effectiveness of home care for seniors as a substitute for long-term institutional services. Design and Methods: Two Canadian cities were included in the research: Victoria, British Columbia, and Winnipeg, Manitoba. The research computes the costs of formal care and informal care in both settings and ensures comparable groups of clients in both settings by comparing individuals at the same level of care. Results: The results reveal that costs were significantly lower for community clients than for facility clients, regardless of whether costs only to the government were taken into account or whether both formal and informal costs were taken into account. When informal caregiver time is valued at either minimum wage or replacement wage, there was a substantial jump in the average annual costs for both community and facility clients relative to when informal caregiver time was valued at zero. Implications: Nevertheless, the results reveal that home care is significantly less costly than residential care even when informal caregiver time is valued at replacement wage.

Canadian panel data 1988-90 were used to compare estimates of minimum-wage effects based on a low-wage/high-worker sample and a low-wage-only sample. Minimum-wage effect for the latter is nearly zero. Different results for low-wage subgroups suggest a significant effect for those with longer low-wage histories. (Contains 26 references.) (SK)

An exploratory econometric model to explain the duration of industrial training programs and to assess training policy is explored. The major results are that most training is conducted in large firms, turnover discourages specific training while government assistance encourages it, and neither minimum wages nor unions have significant negative impact on training. (Author/SK)

Examines the comparative labor market experience of youth in the United States and eight other developed countries from 1960-1979, focusing upon unemployment levels and rates. Finds that the situation worsened in industrialized nations after the 1974-75 recession and that Japanese and German youth continue to have the most favorable job prospects. (CT)

The Gini coefficient for disposable income for Canada in 2019 was approximately the same level it was at in 1995. Underlying this flat recent long‐term pattern is an increase in the level of market earnings inequality in the 1980s and 1990s that Canada shared with other countries followed by a continuing period of flatness in that measure as well. This trend interacted with changes in policy that have, at times, offset earnings inequality trends and at other times exacerbated them. In this paper, we describe these trends and the combination of market and policy forces that drove them. We conclude that explanations rooted in ongoing technology or globalisation forces are less relevant than explanations based on deeper structural changes in the labour market. Those changes affecting earnings inequality were ultimately fully offset by changes in the tax and transfer system as well as labour market policies such as the minimum wage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social policies' responsiveness to rising inflation depends in large part on whether they contain automatic indexation mechanisms, which ensure that the real value of wages and benefits expands during inflationary periods. Here we compare how the indexation of Canadian and U.S. policies on pensions, minimum wages, and food security have affected their responsiveness to the recent cost-of-living crisis. Three main conclusions emerge from our analysis. First, automatic indexation is not necessarily a silver bullet to avoid policy drift. Second, automatic indexation and its design are not the only factors that matter to determine whether high inflation leads to policy drift. Finally, in times of higher inflation, social programs that lack automatic indexation can avoid policy drift, as long as a strong political consensus allows for ad hoc social policy expansion capable of offsetting the negative effects of inflations on social benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In high income countries one in five children still lives in poverty, which is known to adversely shape the life course health trajectory of these children. However, much less is understood on whether social and fiscal policies have the capacity to reverse this damage, which intervention is likely to be most effective and when these interventions should be delivered to maximise their impact. This systematic review attempts to address these questions by looking at the impact of income-support interventions, delivered during the first 1,000 days of life, on cardiovascular, metabolic, respiratory and mental health outcomes. Methods: The review was restricted to experimental or quasi experimental studies conducted in high income countries. Studies were retrieved from multidisciplinary databases as well as health, economic, social sciences-specific literature browsers. All papers retrieved through the search strategy were double screened at title, abstract and full text stage. Relevant data of the selected studies were extracted and collected in tables, then summarised via narrative synthesis approach. Robustness of findings was assessed by tabulating impact by health outcome, type of intervention and study design. Results: Overall, 16 relevant papers were identified, including 15 quasi-experimental studies and one randomized control trial (RCT). Income-support interventions included were unconditional/conditional cash transfers, income tax credit and minimum wage salary policies. Most studies were conducted in United States and Canada. Overall, the evidence suggested limited effect on mental health indicators but a positive, albeit small, effect of most policies on birth weight outcomes. Despite this, according to few studies that tried to extrapolate the results into public health terms, the potential number of negative outcomes averted might be consistent. Conclusions: Income-support interventions can positively affect some of the health outcomes of interest in this review, including birth weight and mental health. Given the large number of people targeted by these programs, one could infer that – despite small – the observed effect may be still relevant at population level. Nonetheless, the limited generalisability of the evidence gathered hampers firm conclusions. For the future, the breadth and scope of this literature need to be broadened to fully exploit the potential of these interventions and understand how their public health impact can be maximised. [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 article examines the effects of the disruption of Canada's Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) due to the COVID-19 pandemic to the food supply chain, temporary foreign workers (TFW), farmers, and consumers. Other topics include the key role played by TFWs in the country's agricultural sector, and the need for employers to conduct a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) when hiring TFWs.

Individuals accept additional paid work, in terms of salary increase or more hours, with the expectation they will be financially better off than before. Unfortunately, for recipients of Income Assistance in the province of British Columbia, additional hours of employment or an increase in wages, such as an increase in minimum wage, in some circumstances may actually take money out of their pocket. This is due to the design of Income Assistance and its unintended interactions with other income and social support programs and the tax system. In this paper, we illustrate cases where B.C. residents receiving Disability Assistance or Temporary Assistance (the two main programs that comprise Income Assistance in B.C.) have less after-tax income after working additional hours of employment. In modelling after-tax income for recipients of Disability Assistance and Temporary Assistance as they increase their hours of paid work, we detail when and how additional income earned from paid work affects not only their income assistance levels, but also their eligibility and receipt of some general and health-related supplemental benefits. We show that, as Income Assistance recipients allocate more hours to paid work, the reductions in total after-tax income can be sizable. For example, if a single person receiving Disability Assistance (earning a wage of approximately $15 per hour) increases his or her paid work hours from 16 hours a week to 35 hours a week, it reduces his or her total after-tax income by $1,500 a year. This loss is not just limited to a decline in after-tax income. Access to some general and health-related supplemental benefits provided to Income Assistance recipients may also be lost from working these additional hours.1 By addressing these program-design elements of the current Income Assistance program, the B.C. government can improve the well-being of those receiving Income Assistance. Reforms may also decrease expenditures on Income Assistance in the long-run. Allowing recipients to increase their hours of work or earnings within the year, as their situation permits, without the risk of having their benefits reduced, may actually help more people transition from Income Assistance towards permanent employment, thus breaking the cycle of poverty and increasing social inclusion. Many recipients of Income Assistance already face numerous barriers to paid work, other than those analyzed here, as the result of disability-related employment constraints. After-tax income reductions like those described here create another barrier to employment for these populations that the B.C. government can and should address. Canada's commitment to improving social inclusion for specific populations, such as persons with disabilities, heighten the importance of identifying inequalities and poverty traps within our income assistance system. Institutional barriers to inclusive activities such as employment must be removed to meet these commitments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The right to human dignity has been applied to numerous employment issues: loss of reputation, privacy, sexual and psychological harassment.Human dignity has less often been invoked in litigation involving tangible working conditions such as the minimum wage. These questions have traditionally been dealt with by employment legislation rather than human rights law. This article argues that minimum wage issues are also a matter of human dignity. In this respect, the adequacy and sufficiency of minimum wage regulations could be assessed in the light of the right to human dignity. In particular, we will examine minimum wage regulations in Quebec (Canada) with regard to the right to human dignity as laid down in the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms. In order to substantiate the relationship between the minimum wage and human dignity, we intend to make use of comparative constitutional law. We will draw on the interpretation and application of human dignity developed in international law as well as in four jurisdictions: Quebec, Canada, Israel and Germany. Although Quebec and Canadian case law has applied human dignity to work issues, they have not developed its application to tangible working conditions. By comparison, international law, together with Israeli and German law, have developed the tangible dimension of dignity more extensively. These sources of law may help address the lack of attention on the part of the Quebec courts to the tangible dimension of dignity at work. We then turn to the Quebec minimum wage regulations to evaluate their sufficiency and adequacy in the light of the right to human dignity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent U.S. studies offer conflicting evidence on minimum wage impacts. This paper studies the effects of 185 amendments to minimum wage on employment rates using panel data across Canadian provinces from 1981 to 2011. Ordinary least squares and instrumental variables ( IV) estimates imply a 10% increase in minimum wage is associated with a 1%-4% reduction to employment rates for both male and female teens. We also find that an increase in the minimum wage is associated with lower employment of prime-aged immigrants. Our results are robust to a wide array of IV and the use of controls for spatial heterogeneity. ( JEL J30, J71, J23) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The forty-years of neoliberal capitalism has been accompanied by an ever expanding trend toward deepening inequality and the expansion of a low wage labour market. The expansion of the non-union, post-industrial, 'new' economy characterized by low wage service sector jobs became identified with a deterioration in employment conditions and quality. Employment arrangements, reflecting the new normal, offer not security and adequacy but rather low pay and precarity. Living wage movements, as well as campaigns demanding a higher general minimum wage, have emerged as part of the response demanding economic justice. These movements and campaigns, found both in the United States and Canada, are significantly different in breadth and tactics. Here, those differences are described and interrogated as a function of the uneven terrain of neoliberal restructuring within each country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on researches being conducted on labor markets by researchers in cities of Washington and Quebec. Researcher Sar A. Levitan and Richard Belous are engaged in a study of effects of the U.S. minimum wage upon the working poor and the unemployed. The study will review the legislative history of the Fair Labor Standards Act and evaluate recent analyses of the employment and income effects of minimum wages, attempting to reconcile conflicting findings. Researcher Gregory Wurzburg and Levitan are continuing their study of federal evaluation activities aimed at social programs. The analysis includes some discussion of methodologies but is directed principally at the institutional arrangements for evaluating social programs at the federal level. Researcher Jean Sexton is working on a project entitled Private Employment Agencies, which aims at examining methods and the impact of nonunion private employment agencies in Quebec. Researcher Orley Ashenfelter is studying the determination of the appropriate levels of unemployment compensation and various means of integrating involuntary unemployment into conventional empirical models of labor supply.

I estimate the spillover effects of the minimum wage on the wages of adults (aged 15 to 64) by gender using data from the Canadian Labour Force Survey from 1997 to 2010. I find that the effects of the minimum wage on the wage distribution in Canada do not reach as high up the distribution as in the United States. In addition, my estimates suggest relatively modest spillover effects in the Canadian data, which are smaller than comparable US estimates but larger than those from the United Kingdom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I undertake a Rawlsian political economy exercise-namely, one in which economic institutions are judged by how well they match principles in theories of distributive justice. I contend that such an exercise is integrally related to empirical economics because most theories of justice emphasize respect, which, in turn, depends on how wages and employment are actually assigned in an economy. I explore these ideas in relation to the minimum wage. This leads to a different emphasis on what minimum wage-related outcomes need study, and to a claim that minimum wage setting is related to standards of fairness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We estimate the effect of minimum wages on employment using the Master Files of the Canadian Labour Force Survey over the recent period 1997-2008. Particular attention is paid to the differences between permanent and temporary minimum wage workers-an important distinction not made in the existing literature. Our estimates for permanent and temporary minimum wage workers combined are at the lower end of estimates based on Canadian studies estimated over earlier time periods, suggesting that the adverse employment effects are declining over time for reasons discussed. Importantly, the adverse employment effects are substantially larger for permanent compared to temporary minimum wage workers; in fact they fall almost exclusively on permanent minimum wage workers. ( JEL J30) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate differences in labour market transition rates between high and low minimum wage regimes using Canadian data spanning 1979-2008. We find that higher minimum wages result in lower hiring rates but also lower job separation rates. Importantly, the reduced separation rates are due mainly to reductions in layoffs, occur in the first six months of a job and are present for unskilled workers of all ages. Thus, jobs in higher minimum wage regimes are more stable but harder to get. For older workers, these effects are almost exactly offsetting, resulting in little impact on the employment rate. [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.)

We estimate the effect of minimum wages on poverty for Canada using data from the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) for 1997 to 2007 and find that minimum wages do not have a statistically significant effect on poverty and this finding is robust across a number of specifications. Our simulation results, based on the March 2008 Labour Force Survey (LFS), find that only about 30 % of the net earnings gain from minimum wage increases goes to the poor while about 70 % 'spill over' into the hands of the non-poor. Furthermore, we find that job losses are disproportionately concentrated on the poor. Our results highlight that, political rhetoric not-withstanding, minimum wages are poorly targeted as an anti-poverty device and are at best an exceedingly blunt instrument for dealing with poverty. [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]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Regional Science / Revue Canadienne des Sciences Régionales is the property of Canadian Regional Science Association 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.)

Recent work suggests that ethnic minority wage differentials in Canada are smaller among those receiving performance pay and that the returns to performance pay are larger for ethnic minorities. This article adds to these findings. First, it demonstrates critical gender differences. The earlier findings are generated almost exclusively by males, as we show that the minority wage differential is small or zero for women in both the time rate sector and the performance pay sector. Second, accounting for immigration and language tends to move the ethnic wage differential in favour of minorities. Minority women on output pay are shown to earn more than non-minority women. While the differential often remains negative for minority men on time rates, it becomes insignificant in our most narrow comparison. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use the longitudinal nature of the master file of the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics in Canada for the period 1993–99 to estimate the employment impacts for older workers of the large number (24) of minimum wage increases that have occurred across the different provincial jurisdictions over that period. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, the minimum wage increases have positive impacts on the employment of older workers compared with the negative impacts that are commonly estimated for youths in Canada. The results are robust across various comparison groups and measures of the minimum wage increases. Reasons for this unusual finding are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neumark (2001) used the novel methodology of a prespecified research design to estimate the employment effect of minimum wage changes. We conducted our analysis in the "spirit" of this methodology based on Canadian data from 1981 to 1997. Our minimum wage elasticities are substantial, typically in the range of −0.14 to −0.44, with −0.30 being a reasonable point estimate, and with the effects being larger after lagged adjustments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on longitudinal data from the Master File of the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) for Canada for 1993-1999, we provide multinomial logit estimates of the effect of minimum wages on the probability of being in one of four schooling-employment states as well as transitions across the states. We find that minimum wage increases led to large and statistically significant reductions in the employment of teenagers but had no net effect on their school enrollment or on the individual transition probabilities. We also find no substantial substitution of students for nonstudents or students leaving school to queue for the higher minimum wage jobs. [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.)

Previous U.S. panel estimates of minimum wage effects have been criticized on the grounds that their identification rests on comparisons of "low-wage" and "high-wage" workers. Using Canadian panel data for 1988-90, I compare estimates based on the traditional U.S. methodology with those based on samples of "low-wage" workers exclusively. The results would appear to vindicate the critics: The minimum wage effect from the latter approach is virtually zero. Yet, estimates from different subgroups of low-wage workers indicate that there is a significant disemployment effect for those with longer low-wage employment histories. This highlights the heterogeneity within low-wage workers and the importance of carefully defining the target group not solely based on workers' wages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article identifies the factors that determine the minimum wage policies of provincial governments in Canada. There is renewed interest in how minimum wages affect employment and Canada offers some unique advantages for minimum wage studies. This is because unlike the U.S., Canadian minimum wage is under provincial, not federal jurisdiction. Implicit in the literature on minimum wages is that politicians adjust the minimum wage to maximize their political support or re-election chances. Interest groups provide both direct support and indirect support. Since minimum wage legislation creates winners and losers, the political equilibrium will reflect a balancing of the divergent interests.

We examine the effects of minimum wage legislation in Canada over the period 1975-93. For teenagers we find that a 10% increase in the minimum wage is associated with roughly a 2.5% decrease in employment. We also find that this result is driven by low frequency variation in the data. At high frequencies the elasticity is positive and insignificant. The difference in the elasticity across the bandwidth has implications for the interpretation of employment dynamics as a result of minimum wage policy and experimental design in minimum wage studies. It also provides a simple reconciliation of the "new minimum wage research," which reports very small negative, or positive, elasticities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the impact on school enrollment in Canada of minimum wages and spending on different types of education inputs. Why minimum wage may affect school enrollment rates; Primary focus of minimum wage literature; Methodology used in the examination; Description of the empirical estimates; Illustration of the magnitude of the impact of the minimum wage in school enrollment; Indications of the results.

Examines the distribution of potential employment losses from the proposed increase in the Ontario minimum wage. Use of 1989 data; Workers most and least affected by the wage hike; Consequent reduction in jobs.