Keyword search
Filter results by
Search HelpKeyword(s)
Subject
Results
All (5)
All (5) ((5 results))
- Articles and reports: 11F0019M1995082Geography: CanadaDescription:
Our aim in this paper is to resolve a paradox. Since the 1970s, there has been a downward secular trend in the average real and relative earnings of young adults under the age of 35. Despite the fact that most young children live in households headed by adults under 35, there has been no corresponding secular rise in the incidence of low income among children. Rather child poverty has followed the usual fluctuations of the business cycle.
We show that the relative stability in child poverty rates in the face of declining labour market earnings is a result of two factors. First, the decline in market income in young households with children has been offset by rising transfers. Since the 1970s, social transfers have replaced earnings as the main source of income among low income families with children.
Second, changes in the fertility behaviour and labour market characteristics of young adults have sharply reduced the risk of young children growing up in low income households. Today's young parents are better educated, working more hours, having fewer children, and postponing child-birth until later ages when earnings are higher. Although more children do find themselves in single parent families, this change has been swamped by other changes in family patterns and labour market behaviour that have reduced the risk of child poverty.
Thus, the upward pressure on low income among children stemming from the labour market has been offset by social transfers, on the one hand, and by changes in family formation and the labour market behaviour of young adults, on the other. Except for cyclical variations, the result has been relative stability in the incidence of low income among children over the 1980s and early 1990s. Whether these offsetting patterns will continue in the last half of the 1990s remains to be seen.
Release date: 1995-09-30 - Articles and reports: 11F0019M1995075Geography: CanadaDescription:
This study examines technology use in Canada's manufacturing sector, and how a set of technology-using manufacturing establishments performed relative to non-users. Data originates from a recent Statistics Canada survey, asking manufacturing firms about their use of 22 advanced manufacturing technologies, and panel data taken from the Census of Manufacturers.
Results show that the use of advanced manufacturing technology is widespread, especially in large firms, that multiple-technology use is the norm, and that technologies are generally combined within, as opposed to across, production stages. The technology revolution has been felt more in the area of inspection and communications, and less in fabrication and assembly. In terms of performance, technology-using establishments pay higher wages, enjoy higher labour productivity, and are gaining market share at the expense of non-users.
Release date: 1995-08-30 - Articles and reports: 11F0019M1995080Geography: CanadaDescription:
Inequality in weekly earnings increased in the eighties in Canada. The growth in inequality occurred in conjunction with three facts. First, real hourly wages of young workers dropped more than 10%. Second, the percentage of employees working 35-40 hours per week in their main job fell and the fraction of employees working 50 hours or more per week rose. Third, there was a growing tendency for highly paid workers to work long workweeks. We argue that any set of explanations of the increase in weekly earnings inequality must reconcile these three facts. Sectoral changes in the distribution of employment by industry and union status explain roughly 30% of the rise in inequality. The reduction in real minimum wages and the decline of average firm size explain very little of the growth in age-earnings differentials. Skill-biased technological change could have increased both the dispersion of hourly wages and the dispersion of weekly hours of work and thus, is consistent a priori with the movements observed. Yet other factors may have played an equally important - if not more important - role. The growth in competitive pressures, possible shifts in the bargaining power (between firms and labour) towards firms, the greater locational mobility of firms, the increase in Canada's openness to international trade, the rise in fixed costs of labour and possibly in training costs may be major factors behind the growth in weekly earnings inequality in Canada.
Release date: 1995-07-30 - Articles and reports: 11F0019M1995081Geography: CanadaDescription:
Users of socio-economic statistics typically want more and better information. Often, these needs can be met simply by more extensive data collections, subject to usual concerns over financial costs and survey respondent burdens. Users, particularly for public policy purposes, have also expressed a continuing, and as yet unfilled, demand for an integrated and coherent system of socio-economic statistics. In this case, additional data will not be sufficient; the more important constraint is the absence of an agreed conceptual approach.
In this paper, we briefly review the state of frameworks for social and economic statistics, including the kinds of socio-economic indicators users may want. These indicators are motivated first in general terms from basic principles and intuitive concepts, leaving aside for the moment the practicalities of their construction. We then show how a coherent structure of such indicators might be assembled.
A key implication is that this structure requires a coordinated network of surveys and data collection processes, and higher data quality standards. This in turn implies a breaking down of the "stovepipe" systems that typify much of the survey work in national statistical agencies (i.e. parallel but generally unrelated data "production lines"). Moreover, the data flowing from the network of surveys must be integrated. Since the data of interest are dynamic, the proposed method goes beyond statistical matching to microsimulation modeling. Finally, these ideas are illustrated with preliminary results from the LifePaths model currently under development in Statistics Canada.
Release date: 1995-07-30 - Articles and reports: 11F0019M1995077Geography: CanadaDescription:
Labour economists have developed elaborate theoretical models and conducted very advanced econometric analysis of the decision making of households. But this emphasis on the supply side of the labour market has not been matched by any corresponding degree of sophistication in empirical analysis of the demand side of the labour market. This has been due in part to the lack of appropriate data. This paper outlines why demand side data which outlines the behaviour of firms in the labour market is necessary for the advancement of labour market analysis. It also discusses the constraints which existing data collection methods impose on labour economics. The paper suggests types of data which might be collected, alternative methodologies for an establishment/worker survey, and discusses some of the theoretical and empirical difficulties that might be encountered in such an exercise.
Release date: 1995-04-30
Data (0)
Data (0) (0 results)
No content available at this time.
Analysis (5)
Analysis (5) ((5 results))
- Articles and reports: 11F0019M1995082Geography: CanadaDescription:
Our aim in this paper is to resolve a paradox. Since the 1970s, there has been a downward secular trend in the average real and relative earnings of young adults under the age of 35. Despite the fact that most young children live in households headed by adults under 35, there has been no corresponding secular rise in the incidence of low income among children. Rather child poverty has followed the usual fluctuations of the business cycle.
We show that the relative stability in child poverty rates in the face of declining labour market earnings is a result of two factors. First, the decline in market income in young households with children has been offset by rising transfers. Since the 1970s, social transfers have replaced earnings as the main source of income among low income families with children.
Second, changes in the fertility behaviour and labour market characteristics of young adults have sharply reduced the risk of young children growing up in low income households. Today's young parents are better educated, working more hours, having fewer children, and postponing child-birth until later ages when earnings are higher. Although more children do find themselves in single parent families, this change has been swamped by other changes in family patterns and labour market behaviour that have reduced the risk of child poverty.
Thus, the upward pressure on low income among children stemming from the labour market has been offset by social transfers, on the one hand, and by changes in family formation and the labour market behaviour of young adults, on the other. Except for cyclical variations, the result has been relative stability in the incidence of low income among children over the 1980s and early 1990s. Whether these offsetting patterns will continue in the last half of the 1990s remains to be seen.
Release date: 1995-09-30 - Articles and reports: 11F0019M1995075Geography: CanadaDescription:
This study examines technology use in Canada's manufacturing sector, and how a set of technology-using manufacturing establishments performed relative to non-users. Data originates from a recent Statistics Canada survey, asking manufacturing firms about their use of 22 advanced manufacturing technologies, and panel data taken from the Census of Manufacturers.
Results show that the use of advanced manufacturing technology is widespread, especially in large firms, that multiple-technology use is the norm, and that technologies are generally combined within, as opposed to across, production stages. The technology revolution has been felt more in the area of inspection and communications, and less in fabrication and assembly. In terms of performance, technology-using establishments pay higher wages, enjoy higher labour productivity, and are gaining market share at the expense of non-users.
Release date: 1995-08-30 - Articles and reports: 11F0019M1995080Geography: CanadaDescription:
Inequality in weekly earnings increased in the eighties in Canada. The growth in inequality occurred in conjunction with three facts. First, real hourly wages of young workers dropped more than 10%. Second, the percentage of employees working 35-40 hours per week in their main job fell and the fraction of employees working 50 hours or more per week rose. Third, there was a growing tendency for highly paid workers to work long workweeks. We argue that any set of explanations of the increase in weekly earnings inequality must reconcile these three facts. Sectoral changes in the distribution of employment by industry and union status explain roughly 30% of the rise in inequality. The reduction in real minimum wages and the decline of average firm size explain very little of the growth in age-earnings differentials. Skill-biased technological change could have increased both the dispersion of hourly wages and the dispersion of weekly hours of work and thus, is consistent a priori with the movements observed. Yet other factors may have played an equally important - if not more important - role. The growth in competitive pressures, possible shifts in the bargaining power (between firms and labour) towards firms, the greater locational mobility of firms, the increase in Canada's openness to international trade, the rise in fixed costs of labour and possibly in training costs may be major factors behind the growth in weekly earnings inequality in Canada.
Release date: 1995-07-30 - Articles and reports: 11F0019M1995081Geography: CanadaDescription:
Users of socio-economic statistics typically want more and better information. Often, these needs can be met simply by more extensive data collections, subject to usual concerns over financial costs and survey respondent burdens. Users, particularly for public policy purposes, have also expressed a continuing, and as yet unfilled, demand for an integrated and coherent system of socio-economic statistics. In this case, additional data will not be sufficient; the more important constraint is the absence of an agreed conceptual approach.
In this paper, we briefly review the state of frameworks for social and economic statistics, including the kinds of socio-economic indicators users may want. These indicators are motivated first in general terms from basic principles and intuitive concepts, leaving aside for the moment the practicalities of their construction. We then show how a coherent structure of such indicators might be assembled.
A key implication is that this structure requires a coordinated network of surveys and data collection processes, and higher data quality standards. This in turn implies a breaking down of the "stovepipe" systems that typify much of the survey work in national statistical agencies (i.e. parallel but generally unrelated data "production lines"). Moreover, the data flowing from the network of surveys must be integrated. Since the data of interest are dynamic, the proposed method goes beyond statistical matching to microsimulation modeling. Finally, these ideas are illustrated with preliminary results from the LifePaths model currently under development in Statistics Canada.
Release date: 1995-07-30 - Articles and reports: 11F0019M1995077Geography: CanadaDescription:
Labour economists have developed elaborate theoretical models and conducted very advanced econometric analysis of the decision making of households. But this emphasis on the supply side of the labour market has not been matched by any corresponding degree of sophistication in empirical analysis of the demand side of the labour market. This has been due in part to the lack of appropriate data. This paper outlines why demand side data which outlines the behaviour of firms in the labour market is necessary for the advancement of labour market analysis. It also discusses the constraints which existing data collection methods impose on labour economics. The paper suggests types of data which might be collected, alternative methodologies for an establishment/worker survey, and discusses some of the theoretical and empirical difficulties that might be encountered in such an exercise.
Release date: 1995-04-30
Reference (0)
Reference (0) (0 results)
No content available at this time.
- Date modified: