Canadian Households Research Articles

Using an Engel Curve Approach to Infer Cost of Living Experienced by Canadian Households

We use Survey of Household Spending data for 1997–2015 and apply an Engel curve approach to infer how well the all-items Consumer Price Index (CPI) represents the cost of living experienced by Canadian households. We find that the CPI understates the cost of living for households before 2010. After 2009, the CPI overstated the cost of living of households, suggesting that post-recession real incomes were higher than suggested by CPI deflated incomes. Although this result aligns with those of other studies, this silver lining of recession interpretation shows that the Engel curve approach should be used with caution after economic shocks.

Gestational and early postnatal exposure to a mixture of organophosphate ester flame retardants found in Canadian house dust on hindlimb skeletal development in postnatal day 4 rats

Background: Ever since organophosphate esters (OPEs) became the mainstream replacement for organobromine compounds in fire retardants (FRs), numerous studies have explored their potential as endocrine disruptors and developmental toxicants. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of gestational and early postnatal exposure of OPE mixtures on the ossification of hindlimb phalangeal in postnatal day 4 (PND4) rat pups, as the amount of OPEs within the diet mixture is relative to its composition in Canadian household dust.Methods: Male and female adult Charles River Sprague-Dawley rats were exposed to OPE mixtures for 70 and 21 days, respectively. The OPE doses were determined to be 10x, 1,000x, and 30,000x the relative human exposure. The progenies were exposed to OPEs both gestationally (~21 days) and lactationally (4 days). At least 2 of each sex from each litter were sacrificed and processed at PND4 for skeletal staining using Alizarin red and Alcian blue. The samples were analyzed and compared against a reference sample to examine any abnormalities in ossification.Results: At PND4, there is no significant effect of OPEs on the number of pups with abnormal ossification between the control and treatment groups. High doses of OPEs, at concentrations 30,000x of relative human exposures, showed a significant increase in the severity of delay of ossification at the middle phalanx of PND4 pups.Limitations: Due to the limitation of small sample sizes (litter n=6-7) and a wide variance in data, there is no clear evidence on whether OPE exposure induces greater incidences of abnormal ossification in the digits of PND4 pups.Conclusion: There is a delay in ossification from OPE exposure at the high dose (30,000x).

Indigenous Families and Households in Canada: A Tale of Statistical Disadvantage

In this research note, we review available concepts and statistics for Indigenous families and households. We show how there is currently a knowledge gap concerning the composition of Indigenous households and their evolution over time, which is essential to improve our understanding of their social organization and its relationship to well-being, and thus to develop appropriate policies.

Testing for Stochastic Dominance up to a Common Relative Poverty Line

Although a wide array of stochastic dominance tests exist for poverty measurement and identification, they assume the income distributions have independent poverty lines or a common absolute (fixed) poverty line. We propose a stochastic dominance test for comparing income distributions up to a common relative poverty line (i.e., some fraction of the pooled median). A Monte Carlo study demonstrates its superior performance over existing methods in terms of power. The test is then applied to some Canadian household survey data for illustration.

Association between household food insecurity and mortality in Canada: a population-based retrospective cohort study.

Food insecurity affects 1 in 8 households in Canada, with serious health consequences. We investigated the association between household food insecurity and all-cause and cause-specific mortality. We assessed the food insecurity status of Canadian adults using the Canadian Community Health Survey 2005-2017 and identified premature deaths among the survey respondents using the Canadian Vital Statistics Database 2005-2017. Applying Cox survival analyses to the linked data sets, we compared adults' all-cause and cause-specific mortality hazard by their household food insecurity status. Of the 510 010 adults sampled (3 390 500 person-years), 25 460 died prematurely by 2017. Death rates of food-secure adults and their counterparts experiencing marginal, moderate and severe food insecurity were 736, 752, 834 and 1124 per 100 000 person-years, respectively. The adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) of all-cause premature mortality for marginal, moderate and severe food insecurity were 1.10 (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.03-1.18), 1.11 (95% CI 1.05-1.18) and 1.37 (95% CI 1.27-1.47), respectively. Among adults who died prematurely, those experiencing severe food insecurity died on average 9 years earlier than their food-secure counterparts (age 59.5 v. 68.9 yr). Severe food insecurity was consistently associated with higher mortality across all causes of death except cancers; the association was particularly pronounced for infectious-parasitic diseases (adjusted HR 2.24, 95% CI 1.42-3.55), unintentional injuries (adjusted HR 2.69, 95% CI 2.04-3.56) and suicides (adjusted HR 2.21, 95% CI 1.50-3.24). Canadian adults from food-insecure households were more likely to die prematurely than their food-secure counterparts. Efforts to reduce premature mortality should consider food insecurity as a relevant social determinant.

Homeownership status and risk of food insecurity: examining the role of housing debt, housing expenditure and housing asset using a cross-sectional population-based survey of Canadian households

BackgroundHousehold food insecurity is a potent marker of material deprivation with adverse health consequences. Studies have repeatedly found a strong, independent relationship between owning a home and lower vulnerability to food insecurity in Canada and elsewhere, but the reasons for this relationship are poorly understood. We aimed to examine the influence of housing asset, housing debt and housing expenditure on the relationship between homeownership status and food insecurity in Canada.MethodsCross-sectional data on food insecurity, housing tenure and expenditures, home value, income and sociodemographic characteristics were derived from the 2010 Survey of Household Spending, a population-based survey. Multivariable logistic regression models were conducted to estimate odds ratios of food insecurity among households of all incomes (n = 10,815) and those with lower incomes (n = 5547).ResultsFood insecurity prevalence was highest among market renters (28.5%), followed by homeowners with a mortgage (11.6%) and mortgage-free homeowners (4.3%). Homeowners with a mortgage (OR: 0.51, 95% CI: 0.39–0.68) and those without a mortgage (OR: 0.23, 95% CI: 0.16–0.35) had substantially lower adjusted odds of food insecurity than market renters, and accounting for the burden of housing cost had minimal impact on the association. Mortgage-free homeowners had lower adjusted odds ratios of food insecurity compared to homeowners with a mortgage, but differences in the burden of housing cost fully accounted for the association. When stratifying homeowners based on presence of mortgage and housing asset level, the adjusted odds ratios of food insecurity for market renters were not significant when compared to mortgage holders with low housing asset. Mortgage-free owners with higher housing asset were least vulnerable to food insecurity (adjusted OR: 0.18, 95% CI: 0.11–0.27).ConclusionsSubstantial disparities in food insecurity exist between households with different homeownership status and housing asset level. Housing policies that support homeownership while ensuring affordable mortgages may be important to mitigate food insecurity, but policy actions are required to address renters’ high vulnerability to food insecurity.

Measuring the Effect of Child Benefit on Household Expenditures: Evidence from Canadian Households’ Survey Data

This study examines the effects of the Canada Child Benefit on household expenditures. Estimation of child benefit impact on household expenditure is challenging since benefit and household income may be endogenously determined. Relying on permanent income hypothesis and based on Engel’s approach, findings suggest that spending patterns vary by household composition and income, but overall results indicate that receipt of this benefit is associated with a significant increase in households’ wellbeing. More specifically, expenditure elasticities estimates indicate that spending on child care for households receiving higher proportions of the benefit is the most sensitive spending to any change in household permanent income, which may indicate the existence of financial constraints for those households that prevent them from maximizing their utility. Similarly, spending on school-related items for those receiving lower proportions also represents a sensitive spending.

ANALYSIS OF FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE FINANCIAL LITERACY OF MILLENNIALS IN CANADA

Financial literacy has been recognized as a key skill that equips us with knowledge to manage our financial resources effectively, especially in an increasingly complex financial scenario. Despite its significance, studies around the world indicate that much of the world's population still suffers from financial illiteracy and that measures to remedy the problem are urgently needed. This research focuses on millennials that are the biggest component of the labor force in Canada and as of 2012, households in Canada of the age group under 35 held over 824 billion in assets. Millennials are vulnerable to higher than average levels of disappointment due to their unrealistic financial goals. Despite of their decent earnings, they lack money management skills. The way they behave towards financial literacy may severely affect the economies and societies in which they choose to settle. This study finds out the factors motivating millennials to become financially educated and the best way to spread financial education among motivated people. Moreover, the focus of this research is to find out the sources that millennials get their financial information from. Also, the factors influencing the perception of financial literacy among low-income millennials in comparison to middle income group are studied. Based on our data analysis, we conclude that the overall perception of millennials that they are fairly knowledgeable seems to be a hindrance to their financial literacy. Financially empowered Canadians will reduce the burden on the social safety net and enable them to better plan for their own future. Though there are several programs launched by governments and other organizations in Canada, financial literacy is still a large scale problem. This research proposes future studies on financial literacy among youngsters and millennials so that timely action could be taken to prepare them for their future goals.

Predicting Financial Crises: The Search for the Most Telling Red Flag in the Economy

Canada is often cited as having worryingly high household debt-to-GDP and debt-to-disposable-income ratios, but the assets and net worth of Canadian households have grown more quickly than their debt. Using a new financial vulnerabilities barometer, we show that the inclusion of household debt servicing considerably improves the barometer’s ability to track financial vulnerability, particularly in advance of recessions. In contrast to the Bank of Canada’s financial vulnerability barometer, our index declines sharply after the Great Recession and indicates that financial risks are currently quite low. By focusing on debt servicing (the debt-service-to-disposable-income ratio) rather than debt, the barometer appears to yield fewer false positives than the Bank of Canada’s barometer. Further empirical analysis indicates that debt servicing is an improvement over traditional credit measures in predicting future economic growth and financial crises. We show that the relationship between debt servicing and both financial crises and economic growth is statistically significant. More specifically, we find that increases in new borrowing lead initially to a mild increase in economic activity and a significant reduction in the probability of financial crises, but they subsequently lead to a gradual increase in households’ debt service burden (the sum of principal and interest payments on their outstanding debts), expressed as a ratio of disposable income, which has a significantly negative impact on economic activity and a significantly positive impact on the probability of financial crises. Focusing on debt servicing provides a potential clue as to why we have not seen the type of market correction that has been repeatedly predicted for the Canadian housing market – namely, the fact that over the last 25 years the debt-service-to-disposable-income ratio has largely been flat, except for a mild recent increase, and (not coincidentally) an increase before the 2008 financial crisis. Our findings have policy implications for both the conduct of monetary policy and financial sector regulators. An immediate policy conclusion is that empirical models of financial system vulnerabilities should put more weight on the evolution of debt-service ratios and other indicators related to debt servicing. Furthermore, if financial stability is taken into consideration in the setting of monetary policy, central banks must be concerned with the trade-off between the short-run positive effects of increased borrowing on output and inflation and the potentially negative long-run effects that work their way through the debt-service channel. Lastly, regulators concerned with the housing market and overall financial stability should look beyond traditional credit-to-GDP measures, which were always going to increase in a low interest rate environment, and closely monitor the behaviour of debt servicing.

Robust signed-rank estimation and variable selection for semi-parametric additive partial linear models

A fully nonparametric model may not perform well or when the researcher wants to use a parametric model but the functional form with respect to a subset of the regressors or the density of the errors is not known. This becomes even more challenging when the data contain gross outliers or unusual observations. However, in practice the true covariates are not known in advance, nor is the smoothness of the functional form. A robust model selection approach through which we can choose the relevant covariates components and estimate the smoothing function may represent an appealing tool to the solution. A weighted signed-rank estimation and variable selection under the adaptive lasso for semi-parametric partial additive models is considered in this paper. B-spline is used to estimate the unknown additive nonparametric function. It is shown that despite using B-spline to estimate the unknown additive nonparametric function, the proposed estimator has an oracle property. The robustness of the weighted signed-rank approach for data with heavy-tail, contaminated errors, and data containing high-leverage points are validated via finite sample simulations. A practical application to an economic study is provided using an updated Canadian household gasoline consumption data.

Can Canadian households benefit economically from purchasing battery electric vehicles?

This study uses a 2015 national survey data set to investigate the economic suitability of Canadian households for a battery electric vehicle (BEV) purchase. We compare the total cost of ownership (TCO) for a BEV and an equivalent internal combustion engine vehicle (ICE) of similar vehicle class under a series of incentive and purchase price scenarios. Even with no incentive in place, we find that a considerable share of households (18%) in our national sample are economically suited for a BEV purchase. A bivariate ordered probit model is then used to estimate annual mileage and vehicle ownership period. These variables are the most influential factors on the TCO outcome. According to the results, suburban, multi-vehicle households with children have higher mileages. Education and income have positive impacts on both annual mileage and ownership period, and thus on increasing the economic suitability of BEVs. Results of this study suggest targeted decisions regarding policy and marketing based on consumer conditions as ways to further promote the adoption of BEVs in Canada.

Money speaks: Reductions in severe food insecurity follow the Canada Child Benefit

Food insecurity is a pervasive public health problem in high income countries, disproportionately affecting households with children. Though it has been strongly linked with socioeconomic status and investments in social protection programs, less is known about its sensitivity to specific policy interventions, particularly among families. We implemented a difference-in-difference (DID) design to assess whether Canadian households with children experienced reductions in food insecurity compared to those without following the roll-out of a new country-wide income transfer program: the Canada Child Benefit (CCB). Data were derived from the 2015–2018 cycles of Canadian Community Health Survey. We used multinomial logistic regressions to test the association between CCB and food insecurity among three samples: households reporting any income (N = 41,455), the median income or less (N = 18,191) and the Low Income Measure (LIM) or less (N = 7579). The prevalence and severity of food insecurity increased with economic vulnerability, and were both consistently higher among households with children. However, they also experienced significantly greater drops in the likelihood of experiencing severe food insecurity following CCB; most dramatically among those reporting the LIM or less (DID: −4.7%, 95% CI: −8.6, −0.7). These results suggest that CCB disproportionately benefited families most susceptible to food insecurity. Furthermore, our findings also indicate that food insecurity may be impacted by even modest changes to economic circumstance, speaking to the potential of income transfers to help people meet their basic needs.

Valuing the Multiple Impacts of Household Food Waste.

The Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) has estimated that Canadian households waste 85 kg of food per person annually. Food waste has become an increasingly common focus for policy, regulation, interventions, and awareness-raising efforts in Canada. However, there is still a relative dearth of data to inform such decision-making processes or to provide narratives to contextualize behavior change efforts. In this paper, we describe the results of an uncommonly detailed observational study of household food waste. A total of 94 families with young children living in Guelph, Ontario chose to participate in this study. Over the course of multiple weeks, we collected data on their food purchases, food consumption, and waste generation. All three streams of waste (garbage, recycling, and organic waste) were audited and the food type, degree of avoidability, and weight of each individual component of the organic waste stream was recorded. Using this highly granular data set, we found that the average household in our study generated approximately 2.98 kg of avoidable food waste per week. This estimate was then contextualized in terms of economic losses (dollar value), nutritional losses (calories, vitamins, and minerals) and environmental impacts (global warming potential, land, and water usage). In short, weekly avoidable food waste per household was calculated to be equivalent to $18.01, 3,366 calories, and 23.3 kg of CO2. These multiple valuation frameworks, which are based in detailed observations of family food behaviors rather than estimations derived from system-wide data, will enable more informed and urgent conversations about policy, programming, and interventions in order to reduce the volume of wasted food at the consumer level.

How Data Gaps (re)Make Rural Broadband Gaps

This paper examines challenges to evidence-based decision-making in the design and implementation of rural broadband investment programs. Our focus is on Canada, but similar challenges are evident in the international literature. Based on proprietary telecommunication provider datasets, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunication Commission (CRTC) estimates that broadband services with advertised speeds that meet its basic universal service targets (50 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload) are available to 84 percent of households in Canada. In rural areas however, services that meet CRTC’s speed targets are available to 37 percent of households.Moreover, effective speeds and service quality levels that suppliers deliver and users experience tend to fall well below the government’s aspirational targets. In response to demand for better broadband, a variety of initiatives are directing public investment to the deployment of regional and rural broadband networks, which are typically owned and operated by private companies. There remains a serious lack of relevant data and its effective use in rural broadband strategies and project management. Evidence from the literature suggest that this affects the degree and quality of geo-spatial and econometric analysis resulting in a limited empirical basis to allocate scarce public investments, engage consumers/communities, and assess the outcomes of rural broadband initiatives ex post. While investments in rural connectivity have vastly increased in recent years in Canada, this paper questions if the body of knowledge to inform these initiatives has grown sufficiently to ensure their effectiveness and sustainability. With examples from southern Ontario, Canada, we examine the relevant literature, characterize the broadband data challenge and discuss the importance of proprietary provider data cross-referenced with user experience data.

Exploring private water wells for fecal sources and evidence of pathogen presence in the context of current testing practices for potability in Ontario

Abstract Private water wells provide drinking water for an estimated 4.1 million households in Canada yet remain understudied in the context of microbial water quality or human health impacts. As there exists little systematic surveillance for enteric infections or outbreaks related to well water sources, consumers may be at risk of waterborne infectious diseases. A standard protocol in Ontario requires 200 mL of water, collected, and submitted by well owners, half of which is used to analyze for Escherichia coli and total coliforms (TCs). The aim of this study was to determine the efficacy of testing small water volumes and to survey for other contaminants in addition to bacterial indicators to inform pathogen prevalence and fecal source in drinking water wells. Samples were assessed for E. coli and TCs, by culture, and genetic markers of Bacteroides spp., Campylobacter spp., Salmonella spp., and Shiga toxin-producing E. coli, using qPCR. The source of fecal contamination varied by the geographic region and may be explained by septic tank density and underlying geology, among other factors. A small number of samples (1.9%) showed the evidence of contamination with enteric pathogens. Lastly, E. coli measured by qPCR, as opposed to culture, correlated more strongly to Bacteroides markers.

Improving Public Health Surveillance methods via Smart Home technologies

Improving Public Health Surveillance methods via Smart Home technologies

Assessing progressivity and catastrophic effect of out-of-pocket payments for healthcare in Canada: 2010-2015.

Equity in healthcare is an important policy objective of the Canadian healthcare system. Out-of-pocket payments for healthcare (OPPH) by Canadian households account for a substantial share of total healthcare expenditures. Using data from Statistics Canada's Survey of Household Spending (SHS, n = 33,367), this study examined the progressivity and catastrophic effect of OPPH in Canada over the period 2010 to 2015 inclusive. The Kakwani Progressivity Index (KPI) was used to measure the progressivity of OPPH for each year of the study period. The catastrophic effect of OPPH was calculated using a threshold of 10% of total household consumption. The computed KPI indicated that OPPH are a regressive source of healthcare funding in Canada and the regressivity of OPPH has increased over the study period. This indicates that the distribution of OPPH in Canada is not equitable and the percentagecontribution of households from their total consumption to healthcare as OPPH decreases as their consumption increase. The results also suggested that 7% of Canadian households face catastrophic out-of-pocket payments for healthcare (COPPH) over the study period. The proportion of households with COPPH was higher in rural areas compared with urban areas over the study period. Policies to enhance financial risk protection among low-income and rural households are required to improve equity in healthcare financing in Canada.

Floods and Water Service Disruptions: Eliciting Willingness-to-Pay for Public Utility Pricing and Infrastructure Decisions

Devastating floods and ongoing droughts throughout the world highlight the infrastructure and management challenges facing water and wastewater utilities. While increasing variability in climate has been identified as the immediate culprit, the severity of events has been exacerbated by years of underinvestment in infrastructure improvements due to inadequate pricing of services. The American Water Works Association (2015) identifies a crucial step for decision-makers: identify clearly communities’ priorities with respect to water and wastewater management, both of which provide public or community-level goods and services. Using data from two separate choice experiments, collected in the same survey of Canadian households, the current paper estimates household willingness-to-pay (WTP) to reduce the likelihood of flood events and water service disruptions. Results from both choice experiments show a strong preference for policy scenarios that reduce these risks, although there is a substantial amount of heterogeneity. People living in the Prairie region, rural residents, and people living in areas with higher home values have a higher WTP. Although the results lend support to public infrastructure programs for addressing flood and water disruption risks, the degree to which these are preferred to private action is not clear.

“Havin’ Money’s Not Everything, Not Havin’ It Is”: The Importance of Financial Satisfaction for Life Satisfaction in Financially Stressed Households

This paper explores the importance of financial satisfaction for overall life satisfaction in households whose principal source of subjective stress is financial. Using data drawn from 2 waves (2005, 2010) of the nationally representative General Social Survey in Canada, we find that for financially stressed Canadian households, their stress-affected sense of financial well-being overwhelmingly conditions their overall sense of life satisfaction. We consider as well the potential for financial stress to moderate the relationship between income and life satisfaction but find only a modest effect and then only for high income households in 2005.

The Relationship Between Food Banks and Food Insecurity: Insights from Canada

Food banks have become the first line of response to problems of hunger and food insecurity in affluent nations. Although originating in the USA, food banks are now well established in Canada, Australia, and some Nordic countries, and they have rapidly expanded in the UK and other parts of Europe in the past two decades. Defined by the mobilization of food donations and volunteer labor within communities to provide food to those in need, food banks are undeniably a response to food insecurity, but their relevance to this problem is rarely assessed. We drew on data from the 2008 Canadian Household Panel Survey Pilot to assess the relationship between food bank use and household food insecurity over the prior 12 months and examine the interrelation between food-insecure households’ use of other resource augmentation strategies and their use of food banks. We found that most food-insecure households delayed bill payments and sought financial help from friends and family, but only 21.1% used food banks. Food bank users appeared to be more desperate: They had substantially lower incomes than food-insecure households who did not use food banks and were more likely to seek help from relatives and friends and other community agencies. Our findings challenge the current emphasis on food charity as a response to household food insecurity. Measures are needed to address the underlying causes of household food insecurity.