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This research uses the Youth in Transition Survey, Reading Cohort (“YITS-A”) to analyse access to post-secondary education (PSE) in Québec in comparison to other Canadian provinces and regions. We begin by presenting access rates by region and show that university participation rates in Québec are relatively low, while college rates are high in comparison to other provinces, although these differences are presumably due in part to the cégep system in Québec. We then undertake an econometric analysis which reveals that the effects of parental education on access to PSE are much stronger than the effects of family income, and are relatively uniform across the country. The substantially weaker family income effects (stronger for females than males) figure most importantly for the Atlantic Provinces, but much less elsewhere, including in Québec. We also find that the relationships between test scores from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which measures academic ‘‘performance’’ and ‘‘ability’’ and even more so high school grades, differ by province, and are generally strongest in Ontario and weakest in Québec, again perhaps in part due to the cégep system which represents a mediating influence between high school performance and university attendance, in particular. Males are much less likely to attend university across the country, but this gap is widest in Quebec. Our analysis of traditionally under-represented and minority groups points to students from rural Québec actually being at no disadvantage in terms of PSE participation, second-generation immigrants doing especially well in comparison to other provinces, but more recent first-generation immigrants not faring nearly so well in Québec. Finally, young Québecers who do not go on to PSE (especially the Francophone majority) are much more likely than other Canadian youths to say that they simply have no aspirations to attend PSE, and to otherwise say they face no barriers to attending PSE. Policy implications are discussed using a fiscal lens.

Pendant une dizaine d'années, à partir du début des années 1990, les principaux programmes canadiens de soutien du revenu ont subi d'importantes réformes. Pendant ce temps, l'économie a été plongée dans une profonde récession, puis a connu une phase de forte croissance. Dans cet article, nous examinons l'évolution de l'incidence distributive de l'Assurance-emploi (AE) durant cette période. Nos résultats indiquent que l'AE a eu, durant toute la période, un fort effet redistributif sur le revenu des individus et un effet un peu plus faible sur le revenu familial. Toutefois, nous montrons également que la distribution des prestations et des contributions a beaucoup changé, ce qui a affaibli l'effet redistributif. En fait, les prestations et les contributions ont toutes les deux un effet redistributif, alors que la structure des contributions est dégressive. Dans le contexte, ces résultats sont concevables, l'économie ayant fait face à la fois à un niveau élevé de chômage et aux pressions fiscales sur les dépenses gouvernementales. For a decade or so starting in the early 1990s, Canada's major income support programs underwent substantial reform. Meanwhile, the economy first lingered in a deep recession and then recovered with a period of strong growth. This paper focuses on how the distributional impact of Employment Insurance (EI) evolved during this period. We find that EI was strongly redistributive throughout the whole period with respect to the earnings of individuals, and somewhat less so for family income. But we also show that the distribution of benefits and contributions changed substantially over time, becoming less redistributive. Somewhat counter-intuitively, both the benefit and contribution sides of the program are shown to be redistributive, even though the contribution structure is regressive. These findings are relevant in the current context, as the economy struggles with a combination of high unemployment and fiscal pressures on government spending.

Poverty (low income) dynamics are explored using tax filer data covering the period 1992 to 1996. The distributions of short- and long-term episodes are identified and reveal substantial differences by sex and family type. Entry and exit models explore the relationships between poverty transitions and sex, family status and other personal and situational attributes. Duration effects on exiting and re-entering poverty are found to be important, and models including past poverty experiences point to strong 'occurrence dependence' for poverty entry and incidence. Fixed-effect panel data models confirm the above and reveal asymmetries in the impacts of household transitions on poverty. JEL Classification. I3

We investigate the post-layoff configuration of income sources and pathways of prime-age and older laid-off workers exhibiting a high degree of prior attachment. Using a unique Canadian administrative database that links the event of the involuntary layoff with detailed data on income receipt, we track all of their sources of income over an interval spanning five years after layoff. We conduct a multivariate statistical analysis of the incidence of relying on income from several alternative sources, specifically early retirement (both public and private), reemployment, self-employment, or reliance on social insurance benefits (other than pensions). The two most common states for laid-off workers who have not yet reached normal retirement age are early retirement and continued labour market activity. Our findings indicate that the older workers are at the point of layoff, the greater the likelihood is that they will rely on pension income as their primary income source. This incidence of reliance on pension income also increases with the number of years elapsed since the point of layoff.

Les auteurs proposent une analyse empirique de l’accès à la formation postsecondaire en ce qui touche les étudiants des programmes de sciences, technologies, ingénierie et mathématiques, indispensables à la prospérité économique du pays, particulièrement en ce qui a trait au secteur des technologies de l’information et de la communication (TIC). Leur analyse porte sur la cohorte A de l’Enquête auprès des jeunes en transition (EJET-A), dans le cadre de laquelle est suivi un échantillon représentatif de jeunes Canadiens âgés de 15 ans en 1999 jusqu’au moment où se prennent normalement les décisions quant à la formation postsecondaire. Les principaux résultats obtenus révèlent que la proportion des étudiantes qui se dirigent vers les programmes de sciences, technologies, ingénierie et mathématiques est beaucoup plus faible que celle des étudiants faisant le même choix, même après l’application d’un vaste ensemble de variables de contrôle, dont le niveau atteint au secondaire en mathématiques et en science. Par ailleurs, les minorités visibles, en particulier les minorités constituées d’immigrants de première génération, notamment celles qui proviennent d’un groupe précis de régions, se dirigent vers ces disciplines dans des proportions beaucoup plus importantes que les autres. Ces résultats ont une incidence sur le vivier de talents de l’avenir. This article presents an empirical analysis of access to post-secondary education (PSE) as it pertains to students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programs, who are vital to the nation’s economic performance, especially with respect to its information and communication technology (ICT) sector. The analysis is based on the rich Youth in Transition Survey, Cohort A (YITS–A), which follows a representative sample of Canadian youth age 15 in 1999 through to the normal point at which PSE decisions are made. The main findings include that female students go into STEM disciplines at a much lower rate than male students, even after controlling for a broad set of control variables, including high school grades in math and science. Conversely, visible minorities, especially those who are first-generation immigrants, and particularly those from a specific set of regions, participate at much higher rates than others. These results have implications for the ICT talent pool of the future.

The Youth in Transition Survey is used to follow the postsecondary education (PSE) pathways and outcomes of Canadian youth over the mid 2000s. Students starting at community colleges and four year universities are analyzed separately. First program outcomes are reported, showing the proportions of students who leave their first programs but remain in PSE by switching/transferring to other programs, institutions, or levels. Multinomial regression estimates correlates of students' first program switching and leaving decisions. Five year graduation rates are calculated to show the importance of different pathways (across programs, institutions, and levels) to earning a PSE credential; in the aggregate and for subgroups of students. Transfers constitute important but not terribly large pathways for Canadian students to adjust their PSE and obtain PSE credentials. We calculate the resulting extent to which institution specific measures of persistence, PSE leaving, and graduation rates misstate the rates experienced by students. Compared to American students, university and community college starters in Canada have higher persistence and graduation rates and lower transfer rates across institutions. For community college starters, much of the difference is due to the relative lack of well defined pathways from community colleges to universities in Canada. We find that students with more family resources are better able to transfer across programs or institutions in order to obtain a PSE credential.

This paper provides new evidence on the early career earnings of Canadians who obtain a trade certificate. The analysis uses comprehensive national level administrative data on individuals who received a trade certificate between 2008 and 2016 linked to their tax information at Statistics Canada in order to link earnings to their individual characteristics and details related to their certification. In this paper we track their yearly employment earnings from their first full year following certification onward, to a maximum of 9 years. Overall, journeypersons in nationally accredited Red Seal trades earn more than those in non-Red Seal trades, those in Mechanical and Electrical trades earn the most, and journeywomen earn only 47% of what journeymen do overall, largely driven by their being concentrated in a relatively narrow set of low-paying trades.

Les auteurs procèdent à une analyse des revenus de travail des diplômés universitaires titulaires d’un baccalauréat en technologies de l’information et de la communication (TIC), en utilisant un ensemble de données qui établit le lien entre les renseignements relatifs aux étudiants de l’Université d’Ottawa et les dossiers fiscaux tenus par Statistique Canada. Ils suivent chaque cohorte de diplômés de 1998 à 2010, période qui englobe l’essor des point-com et l’effondrement subséquent en 2001. Ils comparent les diplômés des TIC aux ingénieurs formés dans des domaines autres que les TIC ainsi qu’à tous les autres diplômés. Les revenus des diplômés des TIC chutent abruptement à la suite de l’effondrement des point-com, après quoi ils se rétablissent partiellement puis demeurent relativement stables. L’effectif des diplômés a poursuivi son ascension jusqu’en 2005, témoignant de l’écart entre le nombre d’inscrits aux programmes de TIC et le nombre de diplômés, après quoi il a graduellement fléchi jusqu’en 2010. This article presents an analysis of the labour market earnings of university graduates with bachelor’s degrees in information and communication technology (ICT) programs using a dataset that links information on students from the University of Ottawa to tax records held at Statistics Canada. We track each cohort of graduates from 1998 through 2010, thus covering the dot-com boom and subsequent bust in 2001. We compare ICT graduates with engineers from non-ICT fields as well as with all other graduates. ICT graduates and non-ICT engineers generally earned a premium over graduates from all other disciplines taken together. However, ICT graduates’ earnings fell sharply after the dot-com bust, after which they partially recovered and then remained relatively stable. The number of graduates continued to rise through 2005, reflecting the lag between entering and graduating from an ICT program, and then continued to fall through 2010.

Une préoccupation persistante au sujet des personnes âgées est leur capacité à maintenir leur bienêtre économique après leur retraite. Dans une large mesure, ce sont les décisions d’épargne prises pendant les années précédant la retraite qui financent la consommation pendant les années de retraite. Les disparités entre les sexes en ce qui concerne les gains sur le marché du travail et les régimes de retraite financés par l’employeur, de même que la longévité plus grande des femmes, donnent à penser que les ressources dont disposent les Canadiennes à la retraite sont probablement différentes de celles des Canadiens. En étudiant sur 38 ans les données administratives, représentatives à l’échelle nationale, d’une banque de données construite à partir des déclarations d’impôt sur le revenu des particuliers, nous examinons l’évolution des tendances de l’épargne- retraite par rapport à la répartition du revenu selon l’âge et la cohorte de naissance, pour les femmes et pour les hommes. Nous constatons que même si les femmes sont plus susceptibles d’épargner à tous les âges, sous réserve de leur participation, elles épargnent moins et ont tendance à être attirées par des placements qui, en moyenne, offrent un taux de rendement inférieur. Par conséquent, il est possible que les politiques centrées sur la marge d’épargne extensive (les décisions de participation) ne réduisent pas les différences de bienêtre économique entre les femmes et les hommes à la retraite, de sorte que les politiques devraient également viser la marge intensive (le montant de la contribution). Enfin, sur l’ensemble de la répartition des revenus, nous constatons une hétérogénéité substantielle des différences significatives entre les sexes quant aux effets de l’âge, de la cohorte et de la période, et ce, dans les deux marges d’épargne-retraite. A persistent concern regarding elderly people is their ability to sustain their economic well-being after they retire. To a large extent, consumption in retirement years is funded by savings decisions made during the pre- retirement years. Gender disparities in labour market earnings and employer-funded pensions as well as greater longevity suggest that the resources available to Canadian women in retirement will likely differ from those of men. Using 38 years of a nationally representative administrative database developed from personal income tax records, we examine the evolution of retirement savings patterns over the income distribution by age and birth cohort for women and for men. We find that although women are more likely to save at all ages, conditional on participation, they save a smaller amount and tend to be attracted to investments that on average offer a lower rate of return. Thus, policies that focus on the extensive margin of savings (participation decisions) may not reduce differences in economic well-being between women and men in retirement, and policies must also focus on the intensive margin (amount contributed). Last, across the income distribution we find substantial heterogeneity in significant gender differences in age, cohort, and period effects on both margins of retirement savings.