The role of family and government financial supports in helping Canadian workers avoid poverty
Myriam Fortin
Human Resources and Social Development Department, Canada
Contact Email:   myriam.fortinsdc-dsc.gc.ca

The objectives of the paper were: 1) to identify major risks faced by Canadian workers, including a lack of family or government support; 2) to provide definitions of vulnerable workers that consider those risks; 3) to identify the main determinants of economic vulnerability and low-income for Canadian workers in 2002; 4) to assess if vulnerable workers are more prone than other workers to life-disrupting events in Canada (such as unemployment or family dissolution); and 5) to analyze the long-term situation of vulnerable workers in Canada over 1999 to 2003.

Data source: Statistics Canada’s Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID).

Key Results:
- Being low-paid, being a woman or being self-employed are the most important determinants of economic vulnerability for workers.
- Although some workers could potentially become poor if they lost family and/or government support, over a 5-year period, those workers are not more likely than other workers to experience separation or divorce, to lose the economic support of other family members or to experience drastic cuts in government benefits.
- Actually being poor has long-term consequences that ‘simply’ being vulnerable to poverty does not have. Consequently, if poverty is our main concern then the working poor, not vulnerable workers, should be our focus.

Paper Download Information (if available):

Fortin_7.pdf

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