Our topic is the receipt patterns of low-income support benefits in the form of the guaranteed income supplement (GIS) benefit amongst Canadians who are 65 and older. The GIS regime is the only means-tested public retirement benefit that is targeted to the group of retired individuals and...

As governments around the world struggle to reign in ballooning public deficits, one area that has been targeted for cost savings has been to increase the age of eligibility for retirement benefits. In Canada, the March 2012 federal budget announced plans to make a transition in the age of...

Using 1977-1979, 1994-1996, and 2006-2008 data from the SCF and SLID, a decomposition analysis of senior poverty rates is conducted to determine whether changes in seniors’ characteristics, and changes in the extent to which characteristics affect senior’s likelihood of poverty,...

This study uses data from the Statistics Canada Longitudinal Databank (the LAD) to address three general questions: (1) How great is the average drop in the level of total income after retirement? (2) What is the composition of income in retirement, and how does it change? and (3) What impact do...

We study the relationship between age and literacy skills in Canada, Norway and the U.S. – countries that represent a wide range of literacy outcomes -- using data from the 1994 and 2003 International Adult Literacy Surveys. In cross-sectional data there is a weak negative partial...

La sécurité du revenu chez les personnes âgées au Canada est un défi en croissance pour les responsables des politiques. On assiste à un déclin significatif des retraites complémentaires (du secteur privé) et, dans les vingt dernières années, à un important changement de cap dans la...

Malgré une histoire construite avec l’immigration, les immigrants sont les personnes qui ont le plus de difficultés au Canada. D’après une nouvelle recherche récente, la proportion des immigrants récents (au Canada depuis 5 ans ou moins) et qui sont pauvres s’est constamment accrue,...

In this paper, we use a risk framework to analyze the risks seniors face and discuss the success of Canada’s retirement income system in insuring against these risks. We focus on four types of risk: (i) the risk of low income at the onset of retirement, (ii) longevity risk, (iii) business...

The income security of retired Canadians has become an increasing challenge for Canadian policy makers. There has been a significant decline in the coverage of workplace pensions in the private sector and a dramatic shift in the structuring of private-sector pensions away from defined-benefit...

Literacy is central to the improvement and betterment of any society. Individuals cannot fully engage in social and political discourse, and are more likely to become less-than-equals in society without basic literacy to pursue their goals. On the individual level, more literate individuals tend...