The "feminist" case for paying benefits to mothers is that women suffer if they have no independent access to economic resources. The "maternalist" case for targeting benefits rests on the idea that money paid to mothers is more likely to be spent in ways that benefit children. This paper...

The paper evaluates the 1993 child tax benefit reforms using the Social Policy Simulation Model and Database (SPSD/M) developed by Statistics Canada. The paper argues that few of the benefits of the reform went to the poorest families. Instead, because of the interaction of the tax and benefit...

We study changes in time and money available to families with children from 1971 to 2006. Increases in incomes at the top of the Canadian income distribution since the mid-1990s have taken place without any significant increases in total family hours of paid work. On the other hand, for families...

This paper uses longitudinal microdata from the Statistics Canada National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY) to study the family income dynamics of Canadian children from the time they are 4 or 5 until they are 14 or 15. Dynamics of family income have been studied less often than...

This paper uses the child sample of Statistics Canada's 2001 Participation and Activity Limitations Survey to study the economic costs of caring for children with disabilities in Canada. Both explicit out-of-pocket expenditures and implicit costs in the form of foregone labour market...

Child obesity is currently an important policy problem in Canada. Making the best evidence-based policy choices in response requires having the best possible evidence. Yet, we point out how easy it can be to make serious mistakes when measuring child obesity, particularly for young children. We...

This paper assesses two dimensions of the new Canadian child benefit system. First, evidence is presented to show that the earned-income supplement (EIS) will not increase the labour supply of parents with low earnings. Second, the paper demonstrates that the level of child benefits is low by...

Under both Unemployment Insurance (UI) and now under Employment Insurance (EI), Canada has offered extra benefits for some claimants with dependent children. This paper assesses the replacement of the Depenencey Rate (DR) under UI with the Family Income Supplement (FS) under EI. The major...

We use the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth to ask whether (a) parenting a child with a disability or chronic condition leads to lower maternal health status; (b) the association is larger over the longer term; and (c) health consequences are larger for lone than married...