Child deprivation in Ontario: A (less than perfect) comparison with Europe
Geranda Notten
#2013-030
This study assesses how child deprivation in Ontario compares to that of
Ontario's population in general and that of children in eight European
high-income countries (France, Germany, United Kingdom, Belgium, the
Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden). This research has been motivated by
the publication of UNICEF's 10th Child Report Card. Due to lacking data
the report card only compares child deprivation for Europe. For Ontario,
however, deprivation information is available in the 2009 Ontario
Material Deprivation Survey. Being a province that is close to Canada's
average socio-economic performance, replicating the report card
methodology allows exploring how child deprivation in Ontario, and
possibly Canada, compares to Europe.
This study finds that Children in Ontario have somewhat higher
deprivation levels (11.7%) than the Ontario population as a whole
(9.9%). In comparison to the eight European countries, Ontario also has
higher child deprivation levels, ranking right after France which has
the highest deprivation rates and 19th out of 30 countries. Just like
their European peers, deprivation of Ontario children is associated with
families consisting of lone parents and fewer employed household members
as well as caretakers having low education and / or low income.
Nevertheless, the relative disadvantage that such children in Ontario
face seems smaller than in the European countries. As in Europe, there
is considerable lack of overlap between income poor and materially
deprived households: this study finds that about 6% of the children are
both income poor and deprived; 6% are deprived only and 10% are income
poor only (78% are neither income poor or deprived). In sum, rather than
resembling the Nordic countries, child deprivation in Ontario resembles
more to that in Belgium, Germany, United Kingdom and especially France.
As Canada's current focus on 'low income' measures excludes half of the
materially deprived households, these findings suggest that using
material deprivation measures would also contribute to a better and more
nuanced understanding of poverty in Canada.
JEL classification: I32, I38
Keywords: material deprivation, income poverty, child poverty, Ontario, Europe