Analysis

Description:

This article analyzes the impact of immigration on the size and ethnocultural composition of future cohorts of seniors in Canada, using data from the Population Estimates Program, the Population Projections Program and other sources of demographic data.

Description:

In Canada, there has been growing discussion over the aging of the population and other socio-demographic trends which affect the availability of the informal support network of the elderly population. Noting the lower fertility rates of baby boomers, the increased participation of women in the labour force and changing family structure in terms of increased divorce and reconstituted families, assumptions of continued high level assistance from informal support networks - family and friends - are often criticized.

The main objective of this research is to project the future availability of informal support network to meet the need for assistance in performing everyday activities among the disabled elderly population for the period 2001 to 2031. The research examined both sides - supply and demand - of the projected increases in need for assistance for disabled older persons. Future trends are analyzed in terms of demand for support, (that is, changes in the rates of disability among the elderly population), and supply of informal support, (which is largely related to the extent and composition of the family network). Data from two national surveys, the 1996 National Population Health Survey (NPHS) and the 1996 General Social Survey (GSS), are used to identify factors associated with disability and sources of assistance among the elderly population. These results were entered into Statistics Canada's LifePaths microsimulation model to project the use of informal and formal networks in the future. The model also incorporates three disability scenarios to test the sensitivity of the projections when different assumptions are considered. The implications of these trends on the future need for chronic home care services are discussed.

The results show that for the period 2001 to 2031, the average annual growth rate of the number of disabled elderly needing assistance could be about 2.5%. However, the sensitivity analysis shows that an improvement in the health of the population could reduce in a non negligible way this growth rate.

The results also show that, all things being equal, a greater proportion of elderly persons living with a spouse would relieve some of the pressure on the formal network. This positive effect could be dampened in part when joint survivorship is also meaning joint disability.

Description: The study examines major socio-demographic factors associated with the use of home-care services by elderly people living in private households.

Description:

Although health status is strongly associated with residence in a long-term health care facility, the absence of a spouse, low income, low education, and advanced age are also important factors.

Description:

For historical reasons, the best known life tables and those most often used are period tables. They are built using death rates by age for a short period of observation (often a single year) and have as their purpose to represent the status of mortality for this period. The survivors and deaths appearing in their columns are in a way abstractions rather than reality. It is thus erroneous to believe that the life table for a given year (for example, 1995) serves in any way whatever to predict the rate at which those born that year will pass away and, hence, of the average length of the life that they have just begun. With rare exceptions, the average number of years lived by individuals has always been longer than the life expectancy found in the life table constructed for the year of their birth. This is due to the fact that period tables are established using the risks of death by age prevailing in that year. But the ceaseless battle against death reduces these risks year after year for these ages and, by growing older, people benefit from these successive gains.

To reconstitute (or foresee) the rate at which the members of a cohort have (or will) really pass away, it is necessary to deploy very long series of death rates by age and to possess reliable indicators of missing data, and then to adjust them to establish the actual experience of the persons in a cohort. Built in exactly the same way as period tables, these tables are naturally called cohort tables, but comparing observations of their parameters yields conclusions of a different kind.

Description:

This article analyzes the impact of immigration on the size and ethnocultural composition of future cohorts of seniors in Canada, using data from the Population Estimates Program, the Population Projections Program and other sources of demographic data.

Description:

In Canada, there has been growing discussion over the aging of the population and other socio-demographic trends which affect the availability of the informal support network of the elderly population. Noting the lower fertility rates of baby boomers, the increased participation of women in the labour force and changing family structure in terms of increased divorce and reconstituted families, assumptions of continued high level assistance from informal support networks - family and friends - are often criticized.

The main objective of this research is to project the future availability of informal support network to meet the need for assistance in performing everyday activities among the disabled elderly population for the period 2001 to 2031. The research examined both sides - supply and demand - of the projected increases in need for assistance for disabled older persons. Future trends are analyzed in terms of demand for support, (that is, changes in the rates of disability among the elderly population), and supply of informal support, (which is largely related to the extent and composition of the family network). Data from two national surveys, the 1996 National Population Health Survey (NPHS) and the 1996 General Social Survey (GSS), are used to identify factors associated with disability and sources of assistance among the elderly population. These results were entered into Statistics Canada's LifePaths microsimulation model to project the use of informal and formal networks in the future. The model also incorporates three disability scenarios to test the sensitivity of the projections when different assumptions are considered. The implications of these trends on the future need for chronic home care services are discussed.

The results show that for the period 2001 to 2031, the average annual growth rate of the number of disabled elderly needing assistance could be about 2.5%. However, the sensitivity analysis shows that an improvement in the health of the population could reduce in a non negligible way this growth rate.

The results also show that, all things being equal, a greater proportion of elderly persons living with a spouse would relieve some of the pressure on the formal network. This positive effect could be dampened in part when joint survivorship is also meaning joint disability.

Description: The study examines major socio-demographic factors associated with the use of home-care services by elderly people living in private households.

Description:

Although health status is strongly associated with residence in a long-term health care facility, the absence of a spouse, low income, low education, and advanced age are also important factors.

Description:

For historical reasons, the best known life tables and those most often used are period tables. They are built using death rates by age for a short period of observation (often a single year) and have as their purpose to represent the status of mortality for this period. The survivors and deaths appearing in their columns are in a way abstractions rather than reality. It is thus erroneous to believe that the life table for a given year (for example, 1995) serves in any way whatever to predict the rate at which those born that year will pass away and, hence, of the average length of the life that they have just begun. With rare exceptions, the average number of years lived by individuals has always been longer than the life expectancy found in the life table constructed for the year of their birth. This is due to the fact that period tables are established using the risks of death by age prevailing in that year. But the ceaseless battle against death reduces these risks year after year for these ages and, by growing older, people benefit from these successive gains.

To reconstitute (or foresee) the rate at which the members of a cohort have (or will) really pass away, it is necessary to deploy very long series of death rates by age and to possess reliable indicators of missing data, and then to adjust them to establish the actual experience of the persons in a cohort. Built in exactly the same way as period tables, these tables are naturally called cohort tables, but comparing observations of their parameters yields conclusions of a different kind.