Behavior In Canada Research Articles

An explanation of residential energy-efficiency retrofit behavior in Canada

In 1998 the Canadian government introduced the EnerGuide for Houses (EGH) program, essentially consisting of home energy audits with financial incentives provided to the homeowner upon verification that sufficient auditor-recommended upgrades were undertaken to achieve energy savings. In this study, we analyze the EGH data compiled between October 1998 and September 2005 to determine what types of households chose to participate and what appear to be the main factors underlying retrofit decisions. In the program, homeowners were prescribed specific upgrade types in the first audit. Hence, the decision problem involves whether to retrofit at all and how many of the prescribed upgrades to adopt. Moreover, the second audit that reveals this decision does not reflect the possibility that some homeowners might have undertaken the recommended upgrades but opted not to or have yet to undergo the second audit. We adopt an econometric technique that takes these features of the data into account. We find that energy cost savings, financial incentives, and costs of retrofits are important factors behind retrofit decisions given several other home- and household-specific characteristics.

Perceptions of a Triple Bottom Line Approach to Doing Business among Canadian Youth

The millennial generation, those born after 1980, already comprises nearly one-quarter of the Canadian workforce and, over the next few decades, will become a significant proportion of both managers and employees. The attitudes of the millennial generation towards social responsibility, environmental responsibility, and profit maximization will have a profound impact on corporate behaviour in Canada over the coming decades. Among millennials, we find that females are, in general, more socially and environmentally responsible than males, while males exhibit more positive views towards profit maximization. Higher levels of educational attainment among millennials positively impacts their attitudes towards social responsibility, but does not affect their views towards environmental responsibility. Age and full-time work experience interact to affect millennials’ views with younger millennials with low work experience exhibiting higher preferences for environmental responsibility compared to younger millennials with much work experience, but older millennials with much work experience exhibiting higher preferences for environmental responsibility than older millennials with little work experience; furthermore, millennials who acquire a large amount of full-time work experience at a younger age exhibit a stronger preference for socially responsible behaviour compared to millennials who do not acquire full-time work experience at a younger age.

Criminalization and Off-Street Sex Work in Canada

The research presented in this article examines women's perceptions of how the criminal laws relating to prostitution affect the experience of working in the off-street Canadian sex industry. The results of interviews with 10 women indicate that the criminalization of prostitution has numerous effects on the health and safety of indoor workers: the workers are alienated from the protective services of police; they are often misinformed about their legal rights in Canada; they face personal, legal, and social consequences for association with a criminalized activity; their abilities to mitigate risk are severely limited by the criminalization of ancillary activities related to prostitution; and their health is directly affected by the isolation and stress that accompany marginalized labour. The participants share their advice for future regulation of the sex industry in Canada and strongly encourage the removal of adult consensual sex work from the realm of criminal behaviour in Canada.

The Recent Evolution of Retirement Patterns in Canada

Using data from three waves of the General Social Survey on retirement and older workers (1994, 2002 and 2007), we document the evolution of retirement patterns over the last three decades. We combined the analysis of retirement ages of actual retirees with data on expected retirement ages of current workers to create a longer perspective on changes in retirement behaviour in Canada. We also investigate trends in work after retirement. Our findings are in line with findings from other countries. There is an upward trend in retirement ages which likely started around year 2000 for cohorts born after 1945. This trend contrasts with the slow decline in retirement ages observed prior to the end of the millennium. While the downward trend was likely due to factors such as the offering of early retirement programs in private firms, the upward trend is likely to be caused by a wider variety of sources, including better health, less pervasive defined benefit pensions and in general less generous pensions.

Valence politics and economic crisis: Electoral choice in Canada 2008

This paper investigates factors affecting voting behavior in Canada’s October 2008 federal election. The election was held in the context of a rapidly worsening financial crisis that threatened to become a global economic meltdown. National survey data gathered in the 2008 Political Support in Canada Study reveal that the deteriorating economy trumped the opposition Liberal Party’s Green Shift Program as the major campaign issue by a huge margin. Damage done to the governing Conservatives by the economic crisis was limited by perceptions of their leader, Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Analyses of a mixed logit model of electoral choice shows that although the Conservatives had a relatively small share of party identifiers and Harper was widely disliked, his image as “safe pair on hands” helped his party weather the political storm generated by the flood of bad economic news.

Making political choices: Canada and the United States

Recent national elections in Canada and the United States have been exciting, consequential contests. In the 2004 federal election in Canada, the Liberal Party narrowly clung to power after a volatile and bitter battle with the new Conservative Party. In 2006, the Conservative Party won a fragile victory, replacing the scandal-ridden Liberal government. In the 2000 American presidential election, Republican George W. Bush became the first candidate in over 100 years to capture the presidency without a majority popular vote. Four years later, Bush finally attained a narrow popular mandate but only after a hard fought campaign. Then, in 2006, the Republicans suffered a stunning reversal of political fortune, losing control of both Houses of Congress, as public opinion turned massively against the president.In Making Political Choices: Canada and the United States, Harold Clarke, Allan Kornberg, and Thomas Scotto employ a wealth of new survey data to describe these elections and evaluate competing theories of party support and voter turnout. While examining various arguments, the authors contend that a valence politics model provides a powerful explanation of voting behavior in Canada, the United States, and other mature democracies.

Individual, social, environmental, and physical environmental correlates with physical activity among Canadians: a cross-sectional study

BackgroundThe identification of various individual, social and physical environmental factors affecting physical activity (PA) behavior in Canada can help in the development of more tailored intervention strategies for promoting higher PA levels in Canada. This study examined the influences of various individual, social and physical environmental factors on PA participation by gender, age and socioeconomic status, using data from the 2002 nationwide survey of the Physical Activity Monitor.MethodsIn 2002, 5,167 Canadians aged 15–79 years, selected by random-digit dialling from household-based telephone exchanges, completed a telephone survey. The short version of the International Physical Activity Questionnaire was used to collect information on total physical activity. The effects of socio-economical status, self-rated health, self-efficacy, intention, perceived barriers to PA, health benefits of PA, social support, and facility availability on PA level were examined by multiple logistic regression analyses.ResultsSelf-efficacy and intention were the strongest correlates and had the greatest effect on PA. Family income, self-rated health and perceived barriers were also consistently associated with PA. The effects of the perceived health benefits, education and family income were more salient to older people, whereas the influence of education was more important to women and the influence of perceived barriers was more salient to women and younger people. Facility availability was more strongly associated with PA among people with a university degree than among people with a lower education level. However, social support was not significantly related to PA in any subgroup.ConclusionThis study suggests that PA promotion strategies should be tailored to enhance people's confidence to engage in PA, motivate people to be more active, educate people on PA's health benefits and reduce barriers, as well as target different factors for men and women and for differing socio-economic and demographic groups.

Estimating voter migration in Canada using generalized maximum entropy

As voters switch political preferences from election to election, understanding the magnitude of voter flows among parties and transitions between voters and non-voters is an essential element of political analysis. As exit polls are uncommon in Canada, voter migration can also be estimated using suitable statistical techniques. Backing out micro-level voter migration probabilities from macro-level election data is a problem of ‘ecological inference.’ This paper uses the method of generalized maximum entropy (GME) to estimate voter migration patterns for the two most recent Canadian federal elections (2004 and 2006) and two most recent provincial elections in British Columbia (2001 and 2005). The estimation results answer important questions about voter behaviour in Canada. These results will be of interest to political scientists, historians, and politicians, as well as econometric practitioners who wish to estimate voter migration.

Estimating a marriage matching model with spillover effects

We use marriage matching functions to study how marital patterns change when population supplies change. Specifically, we use a behavioral marriage matching function with spillover effects to rationalize marriage and cohabitation behavior in contemporary Canada. The model can estimate a couple's systematic gains to marriage and cohabitation relative to remaining single. These gains are invariant to changes in population supplies. Instead, changes in population supplies redistribute these gains between a couple. Although the model is behavioral, it is nonparametric. It can fit any observed cross-sectional marriage matching distribution. We use the estimated model to quantify the impacts of gender differences in mortality rates and the baby boom on observed marital behavior in Canada. The higher mortality rate of men makes men scarcer than women. We show that the scarceness of men modestly reduced the welfare of women and increased the welfare of men in the marriage market. On the other hand, the baby boom increased older men's net gains to entering the marriage market and lowered middle-aged women's net gains.

The Influence of Religion on Philanthropy in Canada

Recognition of the multi-cultural nature of the Canadian population has led companies across a wide array of business domains to reach beyond their traditional bases of support to focus on hitherto untapped communities as potential markets for their goods and services. Competitive conditions within the voluntary sector have pushed nonprofits along this same path. However, no systematic Canadian research reports on the attitudes, social norms, benefits sought, expectations, opportunities, experiences, or behaviors of sub-communities in the voluntary sector. This paper examines philanthropic behavior by religion using data from the Statistics Canada 2000 National Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating. The paper compares and contrasts the voluntary and philanthropic behaviors of the Canadian population across religious groups; compares and contrasts the motivations for and perceived impediments against such behaviors; and articulates and examines a model that traces the influence of religion on voluntary and philanthropic behavior in Canada’s multi-cultural society.

Immigration and Chinese reproductive behavior in Canada

This study is intended to provide an empirical testing of the minority status hypothesis with regard to the fertility behavior of Chinese immigrants to Canada. The focus is placed on the role of group or social context on actions of individuals. Factors incurred in the immigration process as explained by disruption and assimilation hypotheses are also examined. Using the multi-level contextual analysis, we have found that the relative economic insecurity that comes from minority membership and the course of immigration serves to decrease fertility of minority members, whether they are associated with a pronatalist heritage or not. However, pronatalist traditions do stimulate fecundity of Chinese immigrants as long as their relative economic status is improved and the hardship is gone.

From a two-party-plus to a one-party-plus? Ideology, vote choice, and prospects for a competitive party system in Canada

Conventional wisdom, buttressed by numerous empirical studies, has questioned the importance of both class and ideological factors on voting behavior in Canada. However, two recent studies of the 1997 Canadian national election [Gidengil et al., Canadian J. Political Sci. 32 (1999) 247; Nevitte et al., Unsteady State: The 1997 Canadian Federal Election, Oxford University Press, Ontario, 2000] indicate that ideological factors played an important role in determining the outcome of the election, since they affected the direction of the vote for the several parties in both Quebec and the rest of Canada. In this paper, we clarify and extend these analyses with data from the 2000 election, as well as the 1997 election. We find that a number of ideological dimensions underlie the issue positions of voters in Quebec and the rest of Canada in both the elections and that these have important implications for the maintenance of the multiparty system that seemed to emerge in the last decade. More specifically, we find that ideological factors affect partisan volatility in Canada, and that the inclusion of these factors improves the explanatory power of a standard vote choice model in both election years. We infer from our findings that ideological differences among Canadian voters can help sustain a multiparty system in the foreseeable future but that it is a system that currently favors the Liberal Party—so much so, in fact, that the ability of any other party to successfully displace the Liberals as the government in the future is problematic. However, there is a curious periodicity to the electoral fortunes of Canadian parties at both the federal and provincial levels. Political parties can govern for years and then experience an electoral disaster of a magnitude sufficient to make them a distinctly minority party.

Local Economies, Local Policy Impacts and Federal Electoral Behaviour in Canada

The fortunes of local, regional and provincial economies have often been linked to geographical variation in electoral outcomes, and nowhere more so than in Canada. This article examines economic localism in Canadian voting behaviour by estimating a model of voters' decisions in the 1993 and 1997 federal elections. Individual-specific determinants of the vote measured in the Canadian Election Study are supplemented by measures of voters' local economies and of the local impacts of policy changes. Voters punish the federal government for bad times in their locale and for policy changes that hurt the local economy. This effect is independent of what voters think about their own finances and about the provincial and national economies. The electoral impact of the local economy does not depend on whether government is acknowledged as a potent economic actor, or on the voter's level of political information. However, the relevance of the local economy for national-level electoral behaviour can be "primed" by campaign events, just like any other criterion of voting choice. The response to local economic conditions is part of a broader explanation for geographic patterns of electoral support in Canada.

Strategic Analysis and Export Behaviour of SMEs

An empirical study was conducted in the aerospace sector in order to analyse the relationship between strategic analysis and export behaviour of SMEs. CEOs' perceptions of the environment were measured using the four traditional SWOT model dimensions: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Results from 132 Canadian and 141 American SMEs show interesting differences between the two countries. It appears that Canadian managers are more prone to react to external opportunities whereas their American counterparts adopt a more defensive behaviour and primarily adjust their export behaviour in view of perceived weaknesses and threats. Globally, strategic analysis has a greater impact on export behaviour in Canada than in the USA.

The Ultraviolet Index: A Useful Tool.

The Ultraviolet Index was developed in the United States in 1994 following successful use of ultraviolet (UV) alerts in other countries. This daily National Weather Service prediction is a calculation which integrates five data elements to yield the amount of UV radiation impacting the surface (1m2) at solar noon in 58 of the largest US population centers. This simple numeric prediction is then categorized by the Environmental Protection Agency into five "exposure levels" with protective actions recommended for each level. This information is disseminated through the media. Daily reminders seem to affect awareness and behavior in Canada, but US surveys indicate the need for better understanding through educational graphics. Comparing the UV Index to a precipitation prediction has merit in that it links a familiar daily prediction with implied appropriate protective measures. Graphics link the ideas that "when it rains it pours and when it shines it radiates." Beginning in schools, camps, and dermatology meetings, using the rain/shine analogy, a wider exposure to the Ultraviolet Index is proposed.

Contraceptive Use in Canada: 1984-1995

In every country, contraceptive behavior has important implications for fertility and the prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). There has been relatively little attention to contraceptive practices in Canada, however, particularly how patterns of method use may have changed. Data on contraceptive use were collected from 5,315 women in the 1984 Canadian Fertility Survey, and from 3,220 women and 3,449 men in the 1995 General Social Survey. Among Canadian women aged 15-49, current contraceptive use declined from 69% to 60% between 1984 and 1995. Pill use dropped from 19% to 17%, and IUD use declined from 6% to 3%. However, during the same period, condom use increased from 6% to 10%; tubal ligation declined from 24% to 17%, while vasectomy increased. In addition, the proportion of women sterilized for reasons other than contraception rose between 1984 and 1995. Men were less likely to rely on sterilization than were women (31 % vs. 40%). Men reported higher levels of condom use (22%), but lower levels of pill use among their partners (9%), than did women (10% and 17%, respectively). Contraceptive behavior in Canada is unique: The decline in contraceptive use over the last decade has left Canada's overall contraceptive prevalence among the lowest in the industrialized world, and the rate of sterilization among the highest These changes in contraceptive behavior complicate efforts to plan for social and health needs, particularly policy decisions focusing on reducing infections with STDs.

Matrimonial Behaviour in Canada and Ukraine: The Enduring Hold of Culture

The study compares a century-long matrimonial experience in Canada and Ukraine in terms of such criteria as intensity (universality), timing (age), stability and integrity of marriage. The study reveals a culture of early and universal marriage in Ukraine and that of marriage at more mature ages and one that is not nearly as universal in Canada, thus confirming the existence of Hajnal’s Western and Eastern marriage pattern divide. Perhaps the most striking feature which appears from this comparative study is the tenacity of matrimonial culture in the face of the many unsettling events the two countries have experienced over the century. How is it that an early and universal marriage custom took such a strong hold in Ukraine, a country that suffered from the overpopulation and acute fragmentation of family holdings, whereas in Canada, a country of immigration and abundance of land, late and less-than-universal marriage prevailed? And why do the traditional marriage patterns continue more or less in our day? To solve this conundrum, the study examines the prevailing inheritance customs, types of households, parental responsibility, kinship solidarity, aversion toward illegitimacy. The importance of institutional support for matrimonial culture is illustrated by the example of Canadian Ukrainians. Theoretical questions are raised as to the demographic and matrimonial responses to the modernity exigencies, and as to the role of nonnative and rational imperatives in shaping the individual conduct in the matters of matrimony.

An analysis of reproductive behaviour in Canada: results from an intertemporal optimizing model.

Results based on a sample of Canadian households challenge the findings of most studies which show significant negative effects of schooling on the fertility of women under the age of 45. This is due to the application of methods to an optimization model which distinguish between those households which have completed their reproductive behaviour from those which have not. Completion status and the desired number of children are used to infer characteristics of the optimal programme which are then employed to derive a likelihood function. Traditional demographic methods have so far not fully utilized the distinction between incomplete and completed households in sample surveys. These methods also lead to the conclusion that completed fertility had increased from its all time low in the nineteen seventies.

Do Female MPs Substantively Represent Women? A Study of Legislative Behaviour in Canada's 35th Parliament

AbstractThis article outlines the pattern of women's participation in the Canadian parliamentary system. The question of interest is whether female members of the House of Commons make a difference in politics and, notably, if they substantively represent women. The basic underlying hypothesis is that women in the Canadian House of Commons make a difference, that is to say, they substantively represent women. However, the impact of women in politics is limited: they do indeed make a difference, but not a drastic one. In this sense, women try to shape the legislative agenda and the legislative discourse in order to promote women's issues more than do men, but their activity in favour of women's concerns remains quite limited from a numerical point of view. To achieve effective results in this study, two methods were employed: a survey given to members of the 35th Canadian Parliament, and a content analysis of the Hansard Index of the House of Commons. Overall, the results presented here provide some support for the substantive argument. On the question of whether women members of the House of Commons make a difference in politics, and, significantly, if they substantively represent women, the answer is generally positive, although it is necessary to qualify this response. Both female and male MPs speak and act to support women's issues in the House of Commons, but these activities remain quantitatively marginal. However, on each aspect considered, the group of female MPs were proportionately more involved in women's issues than their male counterparts.

Birth order and fratricidal behaviour in Canada.

In 1996, Sulloway suggested that older siblings would be more fratricidal than younger ones. In Canada from 1974 to 1955, data on fratricide and sororicide do not support this hypothesis.