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  • Articles and reports: 56F0004M2005012
    Geography: Canada
    Description:

    This paper investigates relationships between adult literacy skills and use of information and communications technologies (ICTs). Using the Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey (ALL), it becomes possible to compare respondents' ICT use, based on self-assessed ICT use patterns and attitudes toward computers, with literacy skills and a number of socio-demographic characteristics, including age, gender and educational attainment. The paper offers data for Canada, its provinces and territories, as well as five other countries (Bermuda, the United States, Italy, Norway and Switzerland), allowing international and inter-provincial comparisons. An important objective of the paper is to examine outcomes associated with literacy skills in combination with patterns of ICT use, and this is achieved by profiling these characteristics and studying their relationships with respondent income. In addition, it offers a portrait of adults' computer and Internet use, including purposes of use, attitudes toward computers, and use of other ICTs, and analyzes such use, with a detailed focus on Canada.

    Patterns of Internet and computer access confirm the existence of "digital divides" both within and between nations. Apart from Italy, differences between the countries included in this study are not large. However, as found elsewhere, large divides exist within countries when examining respondents grouped by their level of income. In Canada, the Western provinces, the territories, and Ontario emerge as leaders in ICT use, although regional patterns are complex and vary depending on the specific technology examined.

    Many other factors are also strongly associated with respondents' ICT use. Age, gender, educational attainment, and level of literacy proficiency help predict whether a respondent is a "high-intensity" computer user. A significant decline in ICT use is found to occur after age 45 in all countries. The findings for ICT use by gender, however, were mixed. In the European countries included in this study (Italy, Norway and Switzerland), clear gender differences emerge but no such gap exists in North America. Respondents with less than upper-secondary education are significantly less likely to use computers for a range of purposes, and this pattern is most pronounced in Italy and Bermuda. In addition, scales that measure individuals' use of computers and the Internet, and attitudes toward computers, tend to increase with the literacy proficiency of respondents.

    Finally, literacy and computer use profiles are strongly related to the likelihood that respondents have high earnings. In most countries included in this study, adults who have average or higher literacy skills and who are intensive computer users have about three to six times the odds of being in the top quartile of personal income, compared to respondents with below average literacy skills and less intensive computer use.

    Release date: 2005-12-05

  • Journals and periodicals: 89-617-X
    Geography: Canada, Province or territory
    Description:

    The International Adult Literacy and Skills Survey, undertaken in 2003, measured the proficiencies of a representative sample of Canadian adults aged 16 and over in four domains: prose literacy, document literacy, numeracy and problem solving, and benchmarked performance against an international standard. The proficiency scores are compared between provinces, territories and nations, and over time. Moreover, literacy performance is examined in relation to differences in variables such as educational attainment, employment and unemployment, earnings and self-assessed health. Analyses of the literacy performance of groups of special interest, including women and men, young adults and seniors, recent and established immigrants, and Aboriginal populations are included.

    Release date: 2005-11-30

  • Articles and reports: 11F0027M2005035
    Geography: Canada
    Description:

    This study examines the impact of information and communication technologies (ICT) and of foreign outsourcing on the demand for skilled workers. One of the defining features of the Canadian economy in the last two decades has been an increasing wage gap between more- and less-skilled workers. Over the same period, there have been dramatic increases in expenditures on information and communication technologies and in purchases of foreign intermediate inputs. Using data for 84 Canadian manufacturing industries over the 1981-1996 period, we find that both ICT and foreign outsourcing are important contributors to the demand for skills.

    Release date: 2005-10-28

  • Articles and reports: 88-003-X20050038760
    Geography: Canada
    Description:

    In recent years, the Government of Canada has made substantial new investment in university research with research funding of $4.0 billion in 2003. To commercialize their technologies, Canadian universities and hospitals created 64 spin-off companies in 2003, for a total of 876 created to date. This article highlights some of the changes between 2001 and 2003, as well as presenting the latest regional results.

    Release date: 2005-10-26

  • Articles and reports: 75-001-X200510713146
    Geography: Canada
    Description:

    Workers who use computers earn more than those who do not. Is this a productivity effect or merely selection (that is, workers selected to use computers are more productive to begin with). After controlling for selection, the average worker enjoys a wage premium of 3.8% upon adopting a computer. This premium, however, obscures important differences by education and occupation. Long-run returns to computer use are over 5% for most workers. Differences between short-run and long-run returns suggest that workers may share training costs through sacrificed wages.

    Release date: 2005-09-21

  • Articles and reports: 81-595-M2005033
    Geography: Canada
    Description:

    The private, for-profit Education Services sector plays a key role in developing the knowledge and skills of the Canadian labour force. As awareness of the importance of lifelong learning has increased, so has interest in the contribution of private, for-profit Education Services to increasing skills and knowledge, productivity, innovation and competitiveness.

    Little statistical information, from either the supply or demand side of the Educational Services sector, is available in Canada. Several federal and provincial ministries, academic researchers and industry participants have expressed a need for more comprehensive statistical information on the sector. As the national statistical agency, Statistics Canada has an interest in filling these information needs.

    This report provides an overview of the Education Services sector in Canada. Drawing on available sources of statistical information, it also looks at whether it is possible to shed light on the size and characteristics of the private, for-profit Education Services sector.

    The study was funded by the Policy Research Initiative.

    Release date: 2005-07-20

  • Articles and reports: 75-001-X200510513142
    Geography: Canada
    Description:

    Call centres are believed to be largely responsible for the phenomenal growth of the business support services industry over the past two decades. The Labour Force Survey is used to profile call-centre workers and to substantiate or disprove some commonly held perceptions.

    Release date: 2005-06-20

  • Articles and reports: 89-613-M2005006
    Geography: Canada
    Description:

    The report examines employment, unemployment, work activity, earnings, industrial structure, industry concentration and diversity, and human capital and population growth due to immigration and inter-CMA mobility in Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs) between 1981 and 2001.

    Employment and unemployment rates of Census Metropolitan Area residents in 2001 were at similar levels as twenty years earlier. This despite major changes in the structure of urban economies and in particular the declining importance of manufacturing, and rising employment of business services industries.

    The labour market strength of Canada's largest urban areas varied tremendously in 2001, although the difference between the CMAs with the strongest and weakest labour markets had declined since 1981.

    Immigrants, low-paid workers and young workers lost ground in the labour market between 1981 and 2001. Over the same period women made gains in employment and earnings relative to men.

    University degree holders were highly concentrated in CMAs in 2001. Recent immigrants made a substantial contribution to the growth in the human capital pool in some CMAs between 1996 and 2001. Many small CMAs lost highly educated and young persons to larger CMAs over the same period.

    The report uses the 1981, 1991, and 2001 censuses of Canada, and the 1987-2003 Labour Force Survey.

    Release date: 2005-04-26

  • Articles and reports: 11F0027M2005032
    Geography: Canada
    Description:

    Estimates of GDP are sensitive to whether a business expenditure is treated as an investment or an intermediate input. Shifting an expenditure category from intermediate expenditures to investment expenditures increases GDP. While the international guide to measurement (the SNA (93)) recognizes that R&D has certain characteristics that make it more akin to an investment than an intermediate expenditure, it did not recommend that R&D be treated as an investment because of problems in finding a "clear criteria for delineating [R&D] from other activities".

    This paper examines whether the use of the OECD Frascati definition is adequate for this purpose. It argues that it is too narrow and that attempts to modify the National Accounts would not be well served by its adoption. In particular, it argues that the appropriate concept of R&D that is required for the Accounts should incorporate a broad range of science-based innovation costs and that this broader R&D concept is amenable to measurement.

    Finally, the paper argues that failing to move in the direction of an expanded definition of R&D capital will have consequences for comparisons of Canadian GDP to that of other countries - in particular, our largest trading partner, the United States. It would provide a biased estimate of Canada's GDP relative to the United States. If all science-based innovation expenditures are to be capitalized, GDP will increase. But it appears that Canada's innovation system is directed more towards non-R&D science-based expenditures than the innovation systems of many other countries. If Canada were to only capitalize the narrow Frascati definition of R&D expenditures and not a broader class of science-based innovation expenditures, we would significantly bias estimates of Canadian GDP relative to those for other countries, such as the United States, whose innovation systems concentrate more on traditional R&D expenditures.

    Release date: 2005-04-12

  • Articles and reports: 88-003-X20050017767
    Geography: Canada
    Description:

    While Statistics Canada has been measuring certain aspects of commercialization for a long time, the current usage of the word is challenging the statistical system. Universities and federal labs sometimes commercialize their technologies and we measure their license revenues and spin-off firms. In the private sector, commercialization is called "survival". How do we provide a framework and indicators of "everything"?

    Release date: 2005-02-09
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Analysis (11)

Analysis (11) (0 to 10 of 11 results)

  • Articles and reports: 56F0004M2005012
    Geography: Canada
    Description:

    This paper investigates relationships between adult literacy skills and use of information and communications technologies (ICTs). Using the Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey (ALL), it becomes possible to compare respondents' ICT use, based on self-assessed ICT use patterns and attitudes toward computers, with literacy skills and a number of socio-demographic characteristics, including age, gender and educational attainment. The paper offers data for Canada, its provinces and territories, as well as five other countries (Bermuda, the United States, Italy, Norway and Switzerland), allowing international and inter-provincial comparisons. An important objective of the paper is to examine outcomes associated with literacy skills in combination with patterns of ICT use, and this is achieved by profiling these characteristics and studying their relationships with respondent income. In addition, it offers a portrait of adults' computer and Internet use, including purposes of use, attitudes toward computers, and use of other ICTs, and analyzes such use, with a detailed focus on Canada.

    Patterns of Internet and computer access confirm the existence of "digital divides" both within and between nations. Apart from Italy, differences between the countries included in this study are not large. However, as found elsewhere, large divides exist within countries when examining respondents grouped by their level of income. In Canada, the Western provinces, the territories, and Ontario emerge as leaders in ICT use, although regional patterns are complex and vary depending on the specific technology examined.

    Many other factors are also strongly associated with respondents' ICT use. Age, gender, educational attainment, and level of literacy proficiency help predict whether a respondent is a "high-intensity" computer user. A significant decline in ICT use is found to occur after age 45 in all countries. The findings for ICT use by gender, however, were mixed. In the European countries included in this study (Italy, Norway and Switzerland), clear gender differences emerge but no such gap exists in North America. Respondents with less than upper-secondary education are significantly less likely to use computers for a range of purposes, and this pattern is most pronounced in Italy and Bermuda. In addition, scales that measure individuals' use of computers and the Internet, and attitudes toward computers, tend to increase with the literacy proficiency of respondents.

    Finally, literacy and computer use profiles are strongly related to the likelihood that respondents have high earnings. In most countries included in this study, adults who have average or higher literacy skills and who are intensive computer users have about three to six times the odds of being in the top quartile of personal income, compared to respondents with below average literacy skills and less intensive computer use.

    Release date: 2005-12-05

  • Journals and periodicals: 89-617-X
    Geography: Canada, Province or territory
    Description:

    The International Adult Literacy and Skills Survey, undertaken in 2003, measured the proficiencies of a representative sample of Canadian adults aged 16 and over in four domains: prose literacy, document literacy, numeracy and problem solving, and benchmarked performance against an international standard. The proficiency scores are compared between provinces, territories and nations, and over time. Moreover, literacy performance is examined in relation to differences in variables such as educational attainment, employment and unemployment, earnings and self-assessed health. Analyses of the literacy performance of groups of special interest, including women and men, young adults and seniors, recent and established immigrants, and Aboriginal populations are included.

    Release date: 2005-11-30

  • Articles and reports: 11F0027M2005035
    Geography: Canada
    Description:

    This study examines the impact of information and communication technologies (ICT) and of foreign outsourcing on the demand for skilled workers. One of the defining features of the Canadian economy in the last two decades has been an increasing wage gap between more- and less-skilled workers. Over the same period, there have been dramatic increases in expenditures on information and communication technologies and in purchases of foreign intermediate inputs. Using data for 84 Canadian manufacturing industries over the 1981-1996 period, we find that both ICT and foreign outsourcing are important contributors to the demand for skills.

    Release date: 2005-10-28

  • Articles and reports: 88-003-X20050038760
    Geography: Canada
    Description:

    In recent years, the Government of Canada has made substantial new investment in university research with research funding of $4.0 billion in 2003. To commercialize their technologies, Canadian universities and hospitals created 64 spin-off companies in 2003, for a total of 876 created to date. This article highlights some of the changes between 2001 and 2003, as well as presenting the latest regional results.

    Release date: 2005-10-26

  • Articles and reports: 75-001-X200510713146
    Geography: Canada
    Description:

    Workers who use computers earn more than those who do not. Is this a productivity effect or merely selection (that is, workers selected to use computers are more productive to begin with). After controlling for selection, the average worker enjoys a wage premium of 3.8% upon adopting a computer. This premium, however, obscures important differences by education and occupation. Long-run returns to computer use are over 5% for most workers. Differences between short-run and long-run returns suggest that workers may share training costs through sacrificed wages.

    Release date: 2005-09-21

  • Articles and reports: 81-595-M2005033
    Geography: Canada
    Description:

    The private, for-profit Education Services sector plays a key role in developing the knowledge and skills of the Canadian labour force. As awareness of the importance of lifelong learning has increased, so has interest in the contribution of private, for-profit Education Services to increasing skills and knowledge, productivity, innovation and competitiveness.

    Little statistical information, from either the supply or demand side of the Educational Services sector, is available in Canada. Several federal and provincial ministries, academic researchers and industry participants have expressed a need for more comprehensive statistical information on the sector. As the national statistical agency, Statistics Canada has an interest in filling these information needs.

    This report provides an overview of the Education Services sector in Canada. Drawing on available sources of statistical information, it also looks at whether it is possible to shed light on the size and characteristics of the private, for-profit Education Services sector.

    The study was funded by the Policy Research Initiative.

    Release date: 2005-07-20

  • Articles and reports: 75-001-X200510513142
    Geography: Canada
    Description:

    Call centres are believed to be largely responsible for the phenomenal growth of the business support services industry over the past two decades. The Labour Force Survey is used to profile call-centre workers and to substantiate or disprove some commonly held perceptions.

    Release date: 2005-06-20

  • Articles and reports: 89-613-M2005006
    Geography: Canada
    Description:

    The report examines employment, unemployment, work activity, earnings, industrial structure, industry concentration and diversity, and human capital and population growth due to immigration and inter-CMA mobility in Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs) between 1981 and 2001.

    Employment and unemployment rates of Census Metropolitan Area residents in 2001 were at similar levels as twenty years earlier. This despite major changes in the structure of urban economies and in particular the declining importance of manufacturing, and rising employment of business services industries.

    The labour market strength of Canada's largest urban areas varied tremendously in 2001, although the difference between the CMAs with the strongest and weakest labour markets had declined since 1981.

    Immigrants, low-paid workers and young workers lost ground in the labour market between 1981 and 2001. Over the same period women made gains in employment and earnings relative to men.

    University degree holders were highly concentrated in CMAs in 2001. Recent immigrants made a substantial contribution to the growth in the human capital pool in some CMAs between 1996 and 2001. Many small CMAs lost highly educated and young persons to larger CMAs over the same period.

    The report uses the 1981, 1991, and 2001 censuses of Canada, and the 1987-2003 Labour Force Survey.

    Release date: 2005-04-26

  • Articles and reports: 11F0027M2005032
    Geography: Canada
    Description:

    Estimates of GDP are sensitive to whether a business expenditure is treated as an investment or an intermediate input. Shifting an expenditure category from intermediate expenditures to investment expenditures increases GDP. While the international guide to measurement (the SNA (93)) recognizes that R&D has certain characteristics that make it more akin to an investment than an intermediate expenditure, it did not recommend that R&D be treated as an investment because of problems in finding a "clear criteria for delineating [R&D] from other activities".

    This paper examines whether the use of the OECD Frascati definition is adequate for this purpose. It argues that it is too narrow and that attempts to modify the National Accounts would not be well served by its adoption. In particular, it argues that the appropriate concept of R&D that is required for the Accounts should incorporate a broad range of science-based innovation costs and that this broader R&D concept is amenable to measurement.

    Finally, the paper argues that failing to move in the direction of an expanded definition of R&D capital will have consequences for comparisons of Canadian GDP to that of other countries - in particular, our largest trading partner, the United States. It would provide a biased estimate of Canada's GDP relative to the United States. If all science-based innovation expenditures are to be capitalized, GDP will increase. But it appears that Canada's innovation system is directed more towards non-R&D science-based expenditures than the innovation systems of many other countries. If Canada were to only capitalize the narrow Frascati definition of R&D expenditures and not a broader class of science-based innovation expenditures, we would significantly bias estimates of Canadian GDP relative to those for other countries, such as the United States, whose innovation systems concentrate more on traditional R&D expenditures.

    Release date: 2005-04-12

  • Articles and reports: 88-003-X20050017767
    Geography: Canada
    Description:

    While Statistics Canada has been measuring certain aspects of commercialization for a long time, the current usage of the word is challenging the statistical system. Universities and federal labs sometimes commercialize their technologies and we measure their license revenues and spin-off firms. In the private sector, commercialization is called "survival". How do we provide a framework and indicators of "everything"?

    Release date: 2005-02-09
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