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A PROFILE OF POVERTY
IN MID-SIZED ALBERTA CITIES

by Kevin K. Lee and Cheryl Engler

January 2000

     

Endnotes

1 Edwards, R. Gary and John Hughes. The Gallup Poll, Vol. No. 57, No. 26 (Gallup Canada: Toronto, May 13, 1997).

2 The Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo is actually a large, mostly rural geography in Northeast Alberta. When created between 1991 and 1995, it absorbed the former municipality of Fort McMurray. In order to facilitate a meaningful comparison with the other CSDs examined in this study (which are mostly urban in nature), we created a custom geography of all urban enumeration areas in Wood Buffalo. For the purposes of this report , the custom geography referred to as Wood Buffalo consists only of its urban areas, which roughly forms the shape of the former municipality of Fort McMurray.

3 For the purposes of this study, Aboriginal people are defined as those persons who identified themselves as either North American Indian, Métis or Inuit in the 1996 Census. The Aboriginal identity variable is used to identify the population of study because it represents people who are most likely to use programs and services targeted for Aboriginal people. However, the use of this variable results in a smaller population than the population defined by the ethnic ancestry variable, which was popular in discussions of the Aboriginal population in previous Censuses. As LICO is not calculated for Indian reserves, this study does not include data for reserves within the defined geographies.

4 Persons with disabilities are identified based on their responses to two Census screening questions: "1) Is this person limited in the kind or amount of activity that he/she can do because of a long-term physical condition, mental condition or health problem: a) at home? b) at school or work? c) in other activities, for example, in transportation to or from work, or in leisure time activities? 2) Does this person have any long-term disabilities or handicaps?"

Using Census screening questions to identify persons with disabilities likely undercounts the true number of this population. Another Statistics Canada survey, the Health and Activity Limitation Survey (HALS), asked respondents a battery of questions related to activity limitations to determine their disability status. Administered in 1986 and 1991, HALS is considered the most accurate Canadian survey in identifying persons with a disability. Furrie (1989) compared 1986 Census and HALS data to determine the coverage of the disabled population by the Census, using HALS as the baseline. She found that similar counts in both surveys for persons with severe and moderate disabilities, but the Census counted only 60 per cent of persons with mild disabilities according to HALS. As well, the Census is better at accounting for disabled adults than disabled children. Census counts for adults were about 80 per cent that of HALS counts, but counts for children were about 45 per cent that of HALS. Gender and region also make a difference when comparing the Census and HALS. The Census accounts for 74 per cent of disabled females and 78 per cent of disabled males found by HALS. As well, Census counts most closely matched HALS counts in British Columbia and Alberta (80 per cent of HALS counts found by Census) and differed most in Newfoundland and Manitoba (between 64 and 68 per cent of HALS counts found by Census). Despite undercounting, the Census is the best source of information on disabled persons at local levels. See: Furrie, Adele D. (1989) Comparison of the Results from the 1986 Census and the Health and Activity Limitation Survey for Persons with Disabilities Residing in Households. (Ottawa: Statistics Canada).

5 The extent to which resources are equally shared is debatable. However, families are treated as single units in this study because they are proxies for collective family preferences, they have the advantage of simplicity, and low-income measures commonly assess income adequacy on the basis of family income.

6 For the purposes of this study, "households" refer to both economic families and unattached individuals. However, this definition allows for more than one unattached individual or economic family to live in the same dwelling. Despite living under the same roof, each of these families and individuals are treated as separate households in this study. "Household types" include economic families and unattached individuals. Families are households in which members are related by blood, marriage or adoption (common-law arrangements are considered marriage), and children in these families refer to children under the age of 18. Unattached individuals are persons living without other family members, either with unrelated people or alone. For example, lone-parent families are one type of household; unattached individuals are another.

7 Statistics Canada, Survey of Consumer Finances, 1995.

8 Education levels refer to completed degrees or diplomas, and "secondary" refers to high school.

9 An employment profile by industry and occupation, over time, of the cities listed is beyond the scope of this study. However, such an exercise might facilitate some understanding of variations in the local labour markets of each of the cities profiled.

10 These categories are constructed based on the number of weeks employed and the usual number of weekly hours employed during the year previous to the Census – the same time period for which poverty status is assigned. Full-year or part-year employment refers whether all persons aged 15 to 64 years (excluding institutional residents) were employed a full year (i.e. 49 to 52 weeks), a part year (i.e. 1 to 48 weeks) or none (i.e. no weeks) in 1995. Employment refers to work for pay or in self-employment at all jobs held, even if only for a few hours. Weeks employed include weeks of paid vacation, weeks on sick leave with pay and all weeks in which training was paid for by the employer. Full-time employment refers weeks that were mostly 30 hours or more of employment per week, and part-time employment refers to weeks that were mostly under 30 hours of employment per week.

11In order to simplify the presentation of depth of poverty data, four categories were created to describe household income relative to the appropriate poverty line: non-poor, near-poor, poor and absolute poor. Non-poor households have incomes equal to or greater than 1.25 of LICO, near-poor households have incomes equal to or greater than 1.00 and less than 1.25 of LICO, poor households have incomes equal to or greater than .50 and less than 1.00 of LICO and absolute poor households have incomes less than .50 of LICO.

12 Owner families are defined as those living in a dwelling owned by a member of the household. Monthly shelter costs for owners include utilities, property taxes, mortgage payments and condominium fees. Renters monthly shelter costs, or gross rent, include cash rent, utilities and parking. Shelter costs and tenure data do not include data for farm operator dwellings.

13 This indicator of shelter affordability was designed by the Canada Housing and Mortgage Corportion (CMHC) as a component of the core housing need measure. According to CMHC, A household has an housing affordability problem when it uses more than 30 per cent of its income for shelter expenditures. Most commentators on housing need in Canada also use this affordabilty indicator.

     

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