Keynote Address: Health over the Life Course

Sylvain Segard is a public policy manager with over 20 years of experience at the provincial, federal, and international levels in such diverse fields as economic and regional development, social policy, environment and sustainable development, maritime safety, corporate and strategic planning, and federal budget making. Mr. Segard is the Director General of the Center for Health Promotion with the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC). He oversees a number of programs to promote healthy living among Canadians in general as well as initiatives targeted at reducing health risks among vulnerable populations. Prior to joining PHAC, Mr. Segard was Director General, Program Policy and Planning with the Learning Branch of Human Resources and Social Development Canada. His role was to promote lifelong learning by Canadians and to conduct a review of the Canada Student Loan Program, which lead to the largest modernization to Canada’s student aid in generations. Prior to this, he held progressively more responsible positions with the departments of Foreign Affairs, of Finance, and of Fisheries and Oceans Canada. Mr. Segard holds a B.Sc. in Biology and a Masters of Natural Resources Management. He is married with three children

Employment equity in Canada and South Africa: a comparative review

The South African Government has sought to redress the historical legacy of workplace discrimination by introducing the Employment Equity Act (1998), which was largely modeled on the Canadian Employment Equity Act. Although there is very little comparative information between South Africa and Canada, we fill this gap by reviewing the literature in both countries, highlighting common features of the legislation, discussing the effectiveness of legislation in both countries as well as the progress made by the designated groups covered by the legislation. This paper provides a background on the rationale for employment equity and associated human resource management policies in both Canada and South Africa. The analysis is largely based on institutional theories of organizations. Our evaluation provides overall conclusions for policy makers and organizational leaders, taking into consideration socio-historical, political, and demographic differences between the jurisdictions. Issues include top management commitment, organizational culture, Black economic empowerment, and diversity policies and practice

Who Can Work Where: Reducing Barriers to Labour Mobility in Canada

Barriers to labour mobility in Canada remain a problem, even though Canadian governments have taken steps to reduce them. In the study, the author says Canada’s regulated professions and skilled trades, which represent about 11 percent of the workforce, face barriers to mobility that have negative implications for the country’s productivity, labour supply and future economic prospects. Like the rest of the world, Canada will face a labour crunch in the next 10 years. Unless Canada ensures that its professionals and skilled workers can work anywhere in the country, it could limit the ability to attract the people the economy needs.Economic Growth and Innovation, labour mobility, Agreement on Internal Trade (AIT), Labour Mobility Chapter

CUPE on Strike, 1963-2004

CUPE On Strike offers a profile of the 1502 CUPE strikes since the union's inception in 1963 until 2004. In addition to breakdowns by province and industry, it considers strike incidence over time, duration, size of strikes, contract status, results, and the pattern of lockouts and rotating strikes. Like the overall Canadian strike profile, a majority of strikes are in small workplaces and are settled relatively quickly. Not surprisingly, CUPE strikes are clustered in Public Administration, and Health Care and Social Assistance. This demographic might help to explain the fact that CUPE has been involved in fewer wildcats, lockouts and strikes for first contracts than other unions. Although the overall trend for Canada since the 1990s has been a decrease in strikes, a modest shift in the last five years is evident in the data. For CUPE, this means more workers on strike, longer strikes, and more lockouts, all of which suggest an escalation in employer aggression. The Canadian data which highlight increasing public sector militancy and the feminization of that militancy suggest that CUPE will be a key player in the map of labour militancy in the future. This profile of the strike activities of CUPE, the largest union in Canada, makes visible the experience of strikes from the point of view of workers and their unions. Not only does it contribute to a labour militancy perspective on the quantitative data on work stoppages from Human Resources and Social Development Canada (HRSDC), it also demonstrates the potential of the data to enrich our understanding of worker militancies

Growing Up in Ireland. National Longitudinal Study of Children. Report 5 2017

The transition to second-level education has been identified as a major landmark in young people’s lives, with moving to a new school involving exposure to new teachers and ways of learning, as well as a new peer group. This report draws on Growing Up in Ireland data collected at 13 years of age to explore the factors shaping young people’s experiences of the transition period. It adopts a multidimensional approach, examining the extent of transition difficulties (as reported by parents) and changes in academic self-image – that is, confidence as a learner, from the point of view of young people themselves. Teenagers’ engagement in school is examined in terms of their attitudes to school and to school subjects as well as their attendance levels. Specifically, the report addresses three main research questions: 1. To what extent are young people’s social relationships – with their parents, peers and teachers – associated with their adjustment to second-level education? 2. Is young people’s engagement with school at age 13 related to their earlier experiences at primary level? 3. To what extent are the ease of transition and consequent engagement with school associated with experiences of second-level education

Growing Up in Ireland: The lives of 9-year-olds of cohort '08. ESRI Growing up in Ireland June 2021.

This report provides a descriptive analysis of the findings from detailed interviews conducted between June 2017 and April 2018 with 8,032 9-year-olds and their families from Cohort ’08 (formerly known as the Infant Cohort) of the Growing Up in Ireland study. These families were first interviewed when the Study Child was 9 months old (September 2008 to March 2009) and followed up at 3 years of age (January-August 2011) and 5 years of age (March-September 2013). An inter-wave postal survey was conducted when the cohort was 7/8 years of age (March-October 2016). Responses at 9 years of age represented 72 per cent of the original sample interviewed at Wave 1. The data have been re-weighted to account for differential response across different groups. Capturing experiences and outcomes in middle childhood is crucial as peers become more important in children’s lives and they take a more active role in shaping the nature of their play and activities. Middle childhood is also an important period for developing social and cognitive skills and for children’s emerging self-concept. Behaviours at this stage, including physical activity and diet, may have longer-term consequences for physical health and well-being

The Canadian Elder Standard - Pricing the Cost of Basic Needs for the Canadian Elderly

We determined the after-tax income required to fi nance basic needs for Canadian elders living with different circumstances in terms of age, gender, city of residence, household size, homeowner or renter status, means of transportation, and health status. Using 2001 as our base year, we priced the typical expenses for food, shelter, medical, transportation, miscellaneous basic living items and home-based long-term care for elders living in fi ve Canadian cities. This is the fi rst Canadian study of basic living expenses tailored to elders instead of adults in general, prepared on an absolute rather than a relative basis. We also accounted for an individual’s unique life circumstances and established the varying effect that they have on the cost of basic expenses, particularly for home care. We found that the maximum Guaranteed Income Supple ment and Old Age Security benefi t did not meet the cost of basic needs for an elder living in poor circumstances.Canadian seniors, poverty measure, economic security, aging-in-place, cost-of-living, absolute measure, home care

Social Inclusion Health Indicators

Part of the Inclusive Cities Canada project, this report examines social inclusion from a population health perspective. Social inclusion is a key Social Determinant of Health, and is critical to addressing the social and health inequalities that also impact health

Family Background, Family Income, Cognitive Tests Scores, Behavioural Scales and their Relationship with Post-secondary Education Participation: Evidence from the NLSCY

This paper exploits the panel feature of the Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY) and the large diversity of measures collected on the children ad their families over 6 cycles (1994-1995 to 2004-2005) to explain high school graduation and postsecondary education (PSE) choices of Canadian youth aged 18 to 21 observed in the most recent wave of the survey. In estimating how family background, family income, cognitive abilities, non-cognitive abilities and behavioural scores influence schooling choices they can be used as markers for identifying children at risk of not pursuing PSE. We focus on the impact of measures that are specific to the NLSCY which contains a host of scores on several dimensions such as the cognitive achievement of children (reading and math test scores); behavioural scores that measure the levels of hyperactivity, aggression, and pro-sociality; scores that measure self-esteem and self-control (non-cognitive abilities); and, family scores that measure the quality of parenting, family dysfunction, of neighbourhoods and schools quality. The math and reading scores are particularly interesting because they are computed from objective tests and are not based on any type of recall, as compared, for example, with the Youth in Transition Survey (YITS) data set. Despite the fact that income, as measured as the mean income ($2002) of the family during cycles 1 to 4, does not seem to be a key player for PSE attendance or high school graduation, the sign of its effect is generally positive and non-linear, increases for children in very low income will have a large effect that those with higher levels. More importantly, several variables that are characteristics of low-income families play a key role for schooling attainment. For example, being from a single-parent/guardian home with a poorly educated PMK and with less than (perceived) excellent/very good health or with high levels of hyperactivity for males or high levels of aggression for young teenage females will almost negate any chance of attaining the level of PSE.High school graduation, postsecondary education, schooling transition, gender, youth, longitudinal data

Fixing a Persistent Problem: Canada's Regional Pockets of Unemployment

Canada's Employment Insurance program pays weekly benefits to the unemployed that vary in generosity across regions. While the variable entrance requirements help deliver more benefits to seasonal workers, the mechanism spreads the generosity of benefits to all workers in a region, raising the costs of the program and hindering labour market adjustment.social policy, Canadian EI program, employment insurance reform