Ebook Income Inequality Among Seniors in Canada: The Role of Women’s Labour Market Experience
Income support for the elderly population has long been a priority for policy makers. In many countries, various programs were introduced in the 19th century to support seniors’ incomes and have been credited with raising the incomes of the poorest seniors and reducing the incidence of elderly poverty.
In Canada, the introduction and expansion of retirement income programs such as Old Age Security (1952), the Guaranteed Income Supplement (1967), and the Canada and Quebec Pension Plans (1966) is often credited with improving the well-being of elderly Canadians. Continued monitoring and evaluation of seniors’ incomes and the effectives of these programs is essential to ensure the maintenance of seniors’ standard of living.
Policy makers may also be concerned with income inequality among seniors. Although the causal relationship remains a mystery, there is a clear correlation between socioeconomic status and individual health. As such, changes in income inequality among seniors could lead to changes in inequality of health outcomes including life expectancy, perhaps as some seniors gain better access than others to health services not provided through public programs. As long as the population has some preference for redistribution, policies should be formed to redistribute income in response to increases in income inequality. Formulating an effective targeted policy response to changes in inequality or poverty among seniors first requires a solid understanding of how various factors drive changes in the senior income distribution.
In this paper I begin by documenting recent changes in the distribution of income among seniors in Canada, focussing on the period 1996-2006. By all measures, there had been a persistent downward trend in elderly poverty for several decades in Canada. Over the past decade, there was a general increase in seniors’ incomes that will generally reflect an improvement in seniors’ well-being and a continued decline in the incidence of poverty. Seniors in high-income groups, however, have seen larger increases in incomes than those seniors at the low end of the income distribution. As such, we have also seen a substantial increase in income inequality among seniors over the past decade. This is an interesting break in trend, as income inequality among seniors had been falling for several decades prior to the mid-1990s.
The central goal of this study is to determine which factors are driving the recent changes in seniors’ incomes and income inequality, something not well addressed in existing literature. My focus is on those factors that reflect historical changes in the nature of women’s labour market activity and experiences. As the participation rates of women increased dramatically over the last half century, women have become more attached to the labour force, and their labour supply has become less elastic over time. Subsequently, we expect the nature of women’s retirement to change. As women have obtained greater work experience and have better access to public and private pensions, their income in retirement is not only increasing but also becoming a more important part of seniors’ family income.
Download
PDF Ebook Income Inequality Among Seniors in Canada: The Role of Women’s Labour Market Experience
Posted in :
