We use Canadian Surveys of Consumer Finances 1971-1993 to study the wages of full-time, full-year male and female workers. Median real wages of 24-year-old males without a university degree fell by 25% between 1978 and 1993. For 24-year-old females the decline was more modest and reversed in...

Do Registered Retirement Savings Plans (RRSPs) increase savings? It is unclear whether they are largely "savings-creating" (i.e. generate new savings) or are largely "savings-diverting" (i.e. the repository for shifted existing assets or for savings that would have been made without the plans)....

Intergenerational transfers occur within every society. Those who are able to provide for more than their own needs directly or indirectly provide resources to those who are unable to care for themselves. Each society must somehow choose from the set of all possible transfers a particular...

The relationship between employment and retirement is changing dramatically. In contrast to an earlier pattern of relatively stable career employment leading to retirement around age 65, increasing numbers of men and women are leaving their major employment situation earlier. The process of...

The baby boom generation is now well into middle age, and over the next few decades will reach old age. As the boom generation grows old the costs of maintaining existing social support systems will rise, and the ability or willingness to sustain those systems has been called into question. In...

Few Canadian firms have explicit policies dealing with the aging of their workforces, other than pension policies geared to a conventional retirement age. However, other firm policies have unanticipated consequences that apply differentially to older and younger workers. This paper reviews...

This paper examines whether type of job makes a difference in (a) the likelihood that individuals are providing assistance to elderly relatives, (b) the 'costs' associated with this provision, in terms of both job-related and personal costs, and (c) whether observed relationships differ for men...

In the past, considerable research in gerontology has focused on services provided to seniors. Recently, however, there has a been a growing recognition of the contributions made by seniors to their families, communities and to society. Empirical estimates have been provided by researchers to...

Rapid population growth ceased in Canada when the baby boom ended, and gave way to the baby bust; rapid labour force growth lasted for another two decades. As the century closes growth has become much more dependent on immigration. This paper reviews the consequences of the boom-bust sequence...

This essay examines issues of life-cycle savings of Canadian elderly married-couple households just before and after retirement within both a pooled cross-sectional and a synthetic longitudinal framework. We investigate whether the saving behaviour of elderly couples appears to be motivated by...