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By Edward Hollett, on January 31, 2013, at 6:00 am If you look at nothing else this week, take a look at a comment by Matthew Kerby called “’Representative’ by population in Newfoundland and Labrador”.
Before Kerby was a political scientist at the University of Ottawa, he practiced the craft at Memorial University. He still takes an interest in the goings-on down this way and the population growth strategy caught his attention.
He’s got a good handle on the problem, noting the financial implications for the provincial government. To illustrate the population trends, Kerby took the provincial government’s own forecasts and produced a set of
. . . → Read More: The Sir Robert Bond Papers: Demographics in pictures #nlpoli
By Edward Hollett, on January 21, 2013, at 6:00 am Ross Reid has a new job.
He used to be federal fisheries minister.
Since 2003 or so, Ross has been a deputy minister in the provincial government.
Lots of people got excited last week when Premier Kathy Dunderdale announced that Reid would be deputy minister responsible for the provincial government’s population growth strategy.
Yeah, well, maybe people need to take a closer look before they get their knickers in a bunch.
. . . → Read More: The Sir Robert Bond Papers: Populations #nlpoli
By Edward Hollett, on December 28, 2012, at 6:00 am Flip over to the Occupy NL blog and you’ll see a critique of some recent SRBP posts on the provincial government’s bonus cash for live babies program.
Let’s summarise the critique and then go from there. While this summary will get you through this post, to be fair and to make sure that nothing gets missed, go read the full post with all the charts included at Occupy NL.
The author takes issue with the SRBP approach in the initial post in the December series, which looked at the total number of births. He contends that we should look at “the average number of live births a woman can expect in her lifetime based on age-specific fertility rates in a given year. Secondly, his analysis doesn’t acknowledge that declining birth rates is a trend nation-wide and that provincial rates should be compared to what is happening in other provinces.”
. . . → Read More: The Sir Robert Bond Papers: Creating a Baby Boom. Not. #nlpoli
By Edward Hollett, on December 24, 2012, at 12:30 pm Via Occupy Newfoundland and Labrador, a different take on the success of the bootie call from the one presented in this corner recently.
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By Edward Hollett, on December 21, 2012, at 6:00 am As the last instalment in our survey of birth rates, let’s take a look at the group 15 to 19 and the other end of the scale for statistics, women aged 40-44 at the time of the child’s birth.
The blue line is the number of births to mothers between ages 15 and 19. From 810 births in 1991 down to 321 in 2010. Note, though that the low point on the blue line is 2005 at 254. Since then the number of births to mothers between 15 and 19 has risen steadily. The rate is
. . . → Read More: The Sir Robert Bond Papers: The Teens and 40s #nlpoli
By Edward Hollett, on December 20, 2012, at 9:30 am The number of babies born to mothers in their 30s in Newfoundland and Labrador has declined over the past couple of decades. But the drop isn’t as dramatic as the decline among the 20-somethings.
What stands out in this chart is the way the older age cohort – 35-39 – hasn’t declined as dramatically as the younger ones. The 30-34s basically match the 20-somethings, dropping from about 25,000 to around 15,000. But the older group actually peaked in 1993 but only declined by about 7,000 births per year
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By Edward Hollett, on December 20, 2012, at 6:00 am As we told you a couple of weeks ago, it doesn’t look like the provincial government’s policy of paying cash for live births produced any improvement in the birthrate in the province except for the year they announced the bonus cash.
If you look at the number of births by the mother’s age the lack of effect is more obvious than the gross numbers.
Let’s start with the 20s, an age range when we might expect women would start having babies.
. . . → Read More: The Sir Robert Bond Papers: The 20-Something Birth Rates #nlpoli
By Andrew Jackson, on October 25, 2012, at 7:47 pm Here is a piece I wrote for today’s Globe Economy Lab re the Department of Finance report on the costs of an aging society.
The key point is that the mainstream doom and gloom projections of the costs of falling labour force growth ignore the positive impacts which can be expected as and when we get to a situation of tight labour markets. If we actually get to a low unemployment rate because of fewer labour force new entrants, participation rates of older age groups will rise and we can confidently expect labour productivity growth to increase. Sure, there will
. . . → Read More: The Progressive Economics Forum: The Limits of Demography
By CuriosityCat, on October 13, 2012, at 3:10 pm SS Republican aka Titanic
The Tea Party is winning the battle to be captain on board the good ship Republican, but just as they are about to grasp the wheel and heel the ship even more over to starboard, some in the party have noticed one startling fact: There is an iceberg on the horizon. And it is a huge one. The party seniors have suddenly realized that the Grand Old Party really is a party of and for white Americans. Don’t believe that? Then consider this: 87% of its voters are white:
The numbers tell the tale. Minorities
. . . → Read More: CuriosityCat: The Republican Party: SS Titanic and the coming iceberg
By vsp, on September 7, 2012, at 11:21 am Polling is a long haul game. Jitters of points inside margins of errors don’t showcase who has different levels of support or who is the newest front runner in the media past time of political horse races. So as an avid political watcher I take a step back and look at the long term trends [...]
By Edward Hollett, on June 25, 2012, at 9:30 am This graph will likely cause some people to scratch their chins or heads. The reason is simple: it isn’t the story they’ve been told, namely the one that holds that all our ills of outmigration and the like vanished after 2003.
In fact, if you look at it, outmigration from Newfoundland and Labrador to Alberta has been greatest over the last 10 years or so.
The outmigration peak before then was after the federal support cash from the cod moratorium disappeared.
The lowest points in recent years came during the recession. And the highest quarter of outmigration to
. . . → Read More: The Sir Robert Bond Papers: Alberta-bound #nlpoli
By Greg Fingas, on June 21, 2012, at 10:58 am Here, on why we shouldn’t limit the range of possible contenders in the Saskatchewan NDP’s leadership race – and the number of supporters an outside candidate might need to reach in order to find a place on a final ballot.
Demographics from the column are found here (as to Saskatchewan’s Aboriginal population) and here (as to the urban/rural numbers).
By Nick Falvo, on June 8, 2012, at 12:58 am On June 7, I gave a keynote address to the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees Education Sector Conference. My PowerPoint presentation (with full references) can be found at this link.
Points I raised in the address include the following:
-Canada’s economy has been growing quite steadily over the past three decades, even when one adjusts for inflation, and even when one accounts for population growth. The exceptions, of course, occur during recessions.
-Yet, since the early 1980s, the federal government has been spending less, relative to GDP. Since that time, it has spent less on both “program expenses” and debt-servicing
. . . → Read More: The Progressive Economics Forum: Canada’s Self-Imposed Crisis in Post-Secondary Education
By AppalledBC, on May 11, 2012, at 12:15 pm Some Key Areas Where Neoliberal Policy Undermines both the Industrial Economy and Canadian Democracy
Under the Harper Regime, the investor class is constantly being protected at the expense of the real industrial economy, for just about all policy decisions privilege both the financial sector, with its market-driven initiatives and debt-driven growth strategies, and of course corporations – in particular resource corporations in oil, gas, and mining, all of which combined have a heavily weighted presence on the TSX and, in fact, together with financials drive the TSX index. The obsession with deficit reduction and austerity are part of this process
. . . → Read More: Politics and Entertainment: a tiny glimpse into the ways our government serves the corporate and financial world, not the people of Canada
By Armine Yalnizyan, on May 3, 2012, at 4:21 pm A shorter version of this article appeared today in the Globe and Mail’s Economy Lab
Have you noticed how common it has become to talk about replacing workers with even cheaper workers? If you’re looking over your shoulder, you’re not paranoid; you’re paying attention. There’s probably a cheaper you out there. And in Canada, the feds are helping your boss find them.
This week, the International Labour Organization noted there are 50 million fewer jobs in the global economy than before the financial crisis began in 2008. Some 200 million people are now looking for work, and many
. . . → Read More: The Progressive Economics Forum: While You Were Sleeping: Fed Policies Make It Easier to Hire a Cheaper You
By Nick Falvo, on April 28, 2012, at 9:51 am Simon Tremblay-Pepin, an emerging social policy scholar, has recently blogged here (in French) about Quebec tuition fees.
He points out that, when one adjusts for inflation, Quebec tuition fees are headed into uncharted territory. Indeed, contrary to some recent spin from the Charest government, Tremblay-Pepin makes two important observations:
1. When one takes an average of Quebec tuition fees over the past45 years (using constant dollars), current Quebec tuition fees are significantly higher than the 45-year average.
2. The tuition-fee increases being proposed by the Charest government would bring Quebec’s tuition fees to their highest levels ever.
The above
By Nick Falvo, on February 19, 2012, at 1:23 pm John Stapleton has an opinion piece out on Prime Minister Harper’s proposed changes to Old Age Security (OAS) and the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS).
I find the following quote from Stapleton to be particularly troubling:
By providing OAS and GIS at age 65, Canada has greatly reduced the incidence of poverty among seniors. By moving the age of eligibility for OAS to 67, absent any other measures, the Conservative government will place a whole new age cohort into risk of poverty. My own estimate is that almost 50,000 social assistance recipients, most of them persons with disabilities, would be forced
By Erin Weir, on February 6, 2012, at 10:43 am On CTV yesterday, human resources minister Diane Finley said (45 seconds into this interview): “As we go forward, we’re going to have three times the expense in Old Age Security as we do now, but we’re only going to have half the population to pay for it.”
That sounds pretty scary. If the total cost triples, with only half as many people to pay it, each Canadian would have to pay six times as much for Old Age Security (OAS)!
The Chief Actuary does estimate that the cost of OAS, in nominal dollars, will almost triple by 2030.
. . . → Read More: The Progressive Economics Forum: Diane Finley’s Demographics
By trashee, on January 29, 2012, at 8:31 am … few Grit and Dipper lips smacking at the prospect of running against Harper on the issue of raising the retirement age to 67. While some of Harper’s holy pronouncements in Davos are basically no-brainers (e.g., reforming the immigration system), bringing up the spectre of changing retirement rules mid-game is NOT going to be a winner for the Cons… nor [...]
By AppalledBC, on October 3, 2011, at 3:35 pm HIGHLIGHTS Click to Enlarge 37.8% LPO 30.6% PC 22.7% NDP 7.3% Green 1.6% other Direction of province (Ontario):59% right direction 41% wrong direction Direction of provincial government (Ontario):53% right direction 47% wrong direction Impact of m… . . . → Read More: Politics and Entertainment: Smart Polling from EKOS: No Sign of Ontario Shifting to Tories
By matttbastard, on August 25, 2011, at 11:02 am by matttbastard Michael Valpy addresses the current conventional wisdom that without Jack Layton, the NDP — and Canada’s left — is now doomed, doomed, DOOMED! Ahem. Sorry ’bout that. Now, where were we? Oh! Right. Valpy: When polls from the … Continue reading → . . . → Read More: bastard.logic: Greatly Exaggerated Rumours, Jack Layton Edition
By Edward Hollett, on July 14, 2011, at 6:00 am Only the naive or the demented would portray the looming labour crunch in the province as a “tremendous opportunity”. A report released on Wednesday by the provincial human resources department forecasts that by 2020 – less than a decade fro… . . . → Read More: The Sir Robert Bond Papers: Labour crunch coming
By Edward Hollett, on June 23, 2011, at 6:00 am Recent population figures from Statistics Canada suggest the recession is over and things are getting back to normal. Population in Newfoundland and Labrador dropped in the last quarter primarily due to out-migration. Regular readers of these e-scrib… . . . → Read More: The Sir Robert Bond Papers: Population drops in NL again
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