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A PROFILE OF POVERTY
IN MID-SIZED ALBERTA CITIES

by Kevin K. Lee and Cheryl Engler

January 2000

     

Section 2: Demographics of poverty

Poverty rates varied by community in Alberta in 1995. Figure 2.1 shows poverty rates for the province of Alberta, the City of Edmonton and the City of Calgary, and the five mid-sized Alberta communities. The average poverty rate for Alberta was 18.4 per cent. Edmonton, Calgary, Red Deer and Lethbridge had higher than average rates. In contrast, poverty in Medicine Hat, Grande Prairie and Wood Buffalo had poverty rates below the provincial average. Among the cities shown, larger cities tended to have higher poverty rates.

Age, gender and poverty

The likelihood of being poor in these cities was linked to one’s age. As shown in the first row of Table 2.1, the average poverty rate for the mid-sized cities examined was 17.3 per cent, but this varied substantially by age. Youth (aged 15 to 24) had the highest poverty rate, followed by children under 15. Individuals aged 45 to 54 and 65 to 74 had the lowest poverty rates. The table shows that the risk of living in poverty generally declined with age.

 

Within each age group, there was a wide distribution of poverty rates in different cities. For example, poverty rates for youth aged 15 to 24 ranged from 16.4 per cent in Wood Buffalo to 32.1 per cent in Lethbridge – almost twice the rate from lowest to highest. Furthermore, the risk of poverty relative to other age groups varied among cities. For example, individuals aged 65 to 74 had the lowest poverty rate by age group in Medicine Hat, but the third highest rate in Wood Buffalo. Along with age, the risk of being in poverty was also linked to where one lived.

As shown in Table 2.2, females in the province and in every city were more likely to be poor than men. For all mid-sized cities, 15.2 per cent of males lived in poverty, whereas this was the situation for 19.2 percent of females – a difference of 4.0 percentage points. Females were most at risk to poverty in Red Deer, where 21.9 per cent were living below the poverty line. In comparison, only 14.0 per cent of females in Wood Buffalo were poor.

The reasons for these inequalities are well documented and stem from a number sources. Women typically participate less in the labour market, and when they are employed, typically earn less than men. As earnings are the largest source of income for most non-elderly households, women’s lower average earnings are a large part of the reason they are more likely to be poor than men. As well, their lower lifetime earnings translate into smaller pensions upon retirement.

Source: Prepared by the Canadian Council on Social Development
using data from Statistics Canada’s 1996 Census, custom tabulations.

Figure 2.2 shows the shares of the combined total and poor population in all the cities by their age group and sex. The upper figure shows population bulged twice within the total population, peaking in the age groups 35-44 and children under 15 years of age. However, the lower figure shows that middle-aged people accounted for smaller proportions of the poor population, as the poor were largely made up of people under 25 years of age. Not only were young people more likely to be poor, they accounted for large shares of the poor population.

Source: Prepared by the Canadian Council on Social Development
using data from Statistics Canada’s 1996 Census, custom tabulations.

Aboriginal peoples in poverty

Aboriginal people³ were among those most at risk of living in poverty compared to other groups in the cities examined. Figure 2.3 shows that Aboriginal people in all cities were at least twice as likely to live in poverty than were their non-Aboriginal neighbours.

In Lethbridge and Red Deer, over half of the Aboriginal residents of those cities were poor. In contrast, less than one-fifth of non-Aboriginal residents of these cities were living in poverty. The figures speak to substantial income disparities between these populations in all the communities shown.

As with the overall population, Aboriginal females were far more likely to have experienced poverty than were Aboriginal males in most mid-sized cities. Table 2.3 shows poverty rates for Aboriginal females and males in Alberta and mid-sized cities in the province. The average poverty rate for these cities was almost ten percentage points higher for Aboriginal females than for males (44.0 per cent and 34.6 per cent, respectively). In individual cities, Aboriginal females were more at risk to poverty than were males in all cities except Medicine Hat.

Persons with disabilities in poverty

Persons with disabilities⁴ are another group more at risk of living in poverty than the average person.

As shown in Figure 2.4, individuals with disabilities were significantly more likely to be in poverty than those without disabilities in every city examined. Poverty rates for persons with disabilities ranged from 34.8 per cent in Red Deer to 23.0 per cent in Wood Buffalo.

However, cities with the highest poverty rates among persons without disabilities did not necessarily have the highest poverty rates among persons with disabilities. The difference in the poverty rates of these groups was greatest in Grande Prairie and Wood Buffalo. In those communities, the poverty rate among persons with disabilities was more than double that for persons without disabilities. On the other hand, persons with disabilities were 1.4 time more likely to be poor than were persons without disabilities in Lethbridge and 1.6 times more likely in Medicine Hat.

These figures suggest that having disabilities is a considerable impediment to gaining an adequate income in the cities examined. As well, they suggest that the community in which persons with disabilities live is connected to their risk of being in poverty.

As with the larger population, females with disabilities were more at risk to poverty than were males in all the cities examined. In the average for mid-sized cities, 26.0 per cent of males with disabilities were poor compared to 30.9 per cent of females. Among the individual cities, poverty rates among males with disabilities ranged from a high of 33.0 per cent in Red Deer to a low of 18.2 per cent in Wood Buffalo. Among females with disabilities, rates ranged from 36.0 per cent in Red Deer to 26.4 per cent in Wood Buffalo.

 

     

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