The watershed in this century's politics of welfare is the transformation in income security away from charitable towards governmental support. But in the Canadian case its origins still remain obscure. Although the shift is often pinpointed as occurring during and after World War II, the decisive battles over the propriety of a more active state role were fought between 1914 and 1939. The aims of this study are to demonstrate their significance in pioneering acceptance of the principle of social collectivism, and to shed light on the range of forces shaping the complex process of social policymaking. The case-study method is used to investigate the legacy of interwar welfare politics, viz., the development of emergency and statutory aid for select groups among the very poor. This technique has the advantage of capturing the historical dimension of the policymaking process, and filling the much-needed gaps in Canadian welfare research. Moreover, it provides an opportunity to test propositions concerning social policy innovations and developments. The existing literature identifies several factors as important: the nature of the economy, the cultural context, the structure of political institutions, and four sets of participants - militant workers, interest groups, politicians and bureaucrats. The analysis focuses upon the interaction between these determinants in shaping all the major interwar policy decisions in means-tested income maintenance. The evidence reveals that a myriad of forces shaped the origins of the Canadian welfare state, but their influence varied. Socio-economic change played a mediating role by creating the social problems requiring resolution, and generating the revenues to finance innovations. The general framework of ideas and the institutional structure also exerted a mainly indirect impact, with the former defining the values and the latter guiding the behaviour of the participants. In contrast, all the active political forces played the pivotal role of interpreting the problems and deciding the timing and content of the policy decisions. Interest group power overshadowed working-class militancy as the effective societal spur, with farmers rather than businessmen qualifying as the arch opponents of the collectivist cause. Inside government, elected, not appointed, officials dominated the social policymaking process. / Arts, Faculty of / Political Science, Department of / Graduate

The research undertaken in this thesis examines social assistance (welfare) receipt in Canada during the 1981-95 period to determine the forces responsible for the dramatic growth in welfare use observed during the 1990s. The influence of changes in welfare benefits, labour market conditions, and the availability of unemployment insurance on welfare use during this period is examined using two distinct, but complementary approaches. The first approach investigates this issue from an aggregate standpoint, using Survey of Consumer Finances micro data to construct welfare usage rates for employable singles without children (male and female) and lone mothers. Separate analyses are performed for each of these sub-groups using aggregate province level data. The second approach attacks the issue from a microeconomic standpoint, employing duration analysis to examine the path leading individuals from employment to welfare receipt. Using the 1988-90 longitudinal file of the Labour Market Activity Survey, semi-parametric duration models are estimated to determine how the job loss, reemployment and welfare take-up processes are affected by incentives in welfare benefits, labour market conditions, availability of unemployment insurance as well as demographic variables. The estimates from the duration analysis are applied to administrative data on inflows of persons into the pool of non-employed to simulate and decompose rates of welfare incidence over the 1984-95 period. Results from these two approaches present a relatively consistent picture of welfare use in Canada during the 1990s. Both approaches find strong evidence of important labour market effects. Thus, the economic downturn of the early 1990s played a significant role in the growth of welfare use during this period, particularly in Ontario and Quebec. The evidence concerning the importance of interactions with the unemployment insurance system and changes in benefit generosity is mixed. Both UI effects and benefit effects are found to be important determinants of welfare use but only among specific types of families. The simulation results indicate these factors can account for only a minor amount of the variation in predicted welfare incidence in the 1990s.

Abstract page blank / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / Graduate

The research undertaken in this thesis examines social assistance (welfare) receipt in Canada during the 1981-95 period to determine the forces responsible for the dramatic growth in welfare use observed during the 1990s. The influence of changes in welfare benefits, labour market conditions, and the availability of unemployment insurance on welfare use during this period is examined using two distinct, but complementary approaches. The first approach investigates this issue from an aggregate standpoint, using Survey of Consumer Finances micro data to construct welfare usage rates for employable singles without children (male and female) and lone mothers. Separate analyses are performed for each of these sub-groups using aggregate province level data. The second approach attacks the issue from a microeconomic standpoint, employing duration analysis to examine the path leading individuals from employment to welfare receipt. Using the 1988-90 longitudinal file of the Labour Market Activity Survey, semi-parametric duration models are estimated to determine how the job loss, reemployment and welfare take-up processes are affected by incentives in welfare benefits, labour market conditions, availability of unemployment insurance as well as demographic variables. The estimates from the duration analysis are applied to administrative data on inflows of persons into the pool of non-employed to simulate and decompose rates of welfare incidence over the 1984-95 period. Results from these two approaches present a relatively consistent picture of welfare use in Canada during the 1990s. Both approaches find strong evidence of important labour market effects. Thus, the economic downturn of the early 1990s played a significant role in the growth of welfare use during this period, particularly in Ontario and Quebec. The evidence concerning the importance of interactions with the unemployment insurance system and changes in benefit generosity is mixed. Both UI effects and benefit effects are found to be important determinants of welfare use but only among specific types of families. The simulation results indicate these factors can account for only a minor amount of the variation in predicted welfare incidence in the 1990s. / Arts, Faculty of / Vancouver School of Economics / Graduate