Vol. 27 No. 4 December 2001
Linda
A. White
Child Care, Women's Labour Market Participation and Labour
Market Policy Effectiveness in Canada
This
article explores the connection between child care, active labour
market policies, and women's labour market participation. Through
comparative analysis, it demonstrates that the presence of child-care
services has positive labour market effects on women's labour
market participation.
The
article also discusses the current status of child-care policies and
programs in Canada in light of these observed policy effects. It demonstrates
the poor linkages between programs and services for children and labour
market policies in Canada. It offers specific suggestions as to how
governments and employers could improve the delivery and funding of
child-care services to respond to patterns of women's labour market
participation.
Rhonda
Kornberger, Janet E. Fast and Deanna L. Williamson
Welfare or Work: Which is Better for Canadian Children?
This
study examined whether the employment status of parents in poor families
is a predictor of child development by comparing the verbal development
of preschool children in working poor and welfare-dependent families.
Findings show that verbal development scores of both groups of children
were below the norm, regardless of parents' source of income. Findings
also indicated that children from working poor families had slightly
higher levels of verbal development than children from welfare-dependent
families and that these developmental differences were only partially
attributable to differences in home and family characteristics of
the two groups. The study has a number of important implications for
welfare reform policy and research in Canada.
Shelley
Phipps, Martha MacDonald and Fiona MacPhail
Gender Equity within Families versus Better Targeting:
An
Assessment of the Family Income Supplement to Employment Insurance
Benefits Under both Unemployment Insurance (UI) and now under Employment
Insurance (EI), Canada has offered extra benefits for some claimants
with dependent children. This paper assesses the replacement of the
Depenencey Rate (DR) under UI with the Family Income Supplement (FS)
under EI. The major difference between the programs is that eligibility
for the DR was based on individual earnings while eligibility for
the FS is based on family income. Using evidence from both the Canadian
Out of Employment Panel and a set of focus groups conducted by the
authors, we conclude that while the FS has improved the targeting
of benefits, many married women have lost entitlement or received
lower benefits, thereby increasing the potential for inequity within
families.
Michael
Shannon and Michael P. Kidd
Projecting the Trend in the Canadian Gender Wage Gap 2001-2031:
Will
an Increase in Female Education Acquisition and Commitment be Enough?
The paper projects the gender wage gap for 25-64 year-olds in Canada
over the period 2001-2031. The empirical analysis uses the Survey
of Labour and Income Dynamics together with Statistics Canada demographic
projections. The methodology combines the population projections with
assumptions relating to the evolution of educational attainment in
order to first project the future distribution of human capital skills
and, based on these projections, the future size of the gender wage
gap. The projections suggest continued gender wage convergence produced
by changing skills characteristics. However, a substantial pay gap
will remain in 2031.
Frank
T. Denton, Amiram Gafni and Byron G. Spencer
Population Change and the Requirements for Physicians:
The
Case of Ontario The effects of population change on requirements for
physicians in Ontario are studied. Principal findings are the following:
(a) contrary to popular belief, the overall increase in requirements
will be significantly lower in 2000-20 than in the preceding two decades;
(b) population aging alone will raise the overall rate of growth of
requirements but that will be more than offset by slower population
growth; and (c) the main effect of aging will be on the distribution
of requirements among categories of physicians. These findings suggest
that the emphasis on population aging in policy discussions of future
overall physician requirements is unwaranted.
Michael
J. Prince
Tax Policy as Social Policy:
Canadian
Tax Assistance for People with Disabilities The federal tax system
has several disability-related programs dealing with income support
and tax relief, and with promoting independent community living, education,
employment, family support, and care-giving. The personal income tax
system has become a frequent instrument for disability policy-making
because of court decisions, sustained lobbying efforts by disability
groups, the role of the Finance Department, and the active support
of parliamentary committees. Tax policy-making is a process through
which disability is politically recognized, administratively regulated,
judicially mediated at times, and financially supported. Despite advances
concerns remain over the coverage, adequacy, and complexity of this
assortment of tax expenditures. A reform agenda should consider the
modernization of federal tax measures within a collaborative intergovernmental
approach to social policy issues.
Critical
Essays on Canadian Public Policy
David
W. Peters and Douglas D. Peters
Reforming Canada's Financial Services Sector -
What
Needs to Follow from Bill C8 New federal legislation regulating financial
institutions was introduced into Parliament as Bill C38 and a similar
bill, Bill C8, was reintroduced and passed into law in the spring
of 2001. This paper is a critical analysis of the new legislation.
The legislation does not address many of the important recommendations
of the MacKay task force. It ignores consumer interests and retains
the anti-competitive rules for insurance and automobile leasing. It
adds complications with a new Financial Consumer Agency and proposes
to remove the 10 percent ownership restrictions, which were valuable
in past years. This legislation fails to meet the objectives of the
government's White Paper.
