Exercise 1: The Miracle Question



Commentary 2:

Social Inequality in Canada and the United States

The purpose of this commentary is to provide specific examples of social inequality in Canada and the United States. You may decide to use some of these points to support your argument for Question 2 of the discussion forums.

Income and Poverty

In a report by Kerstetter (2002) based on Statistics Canada data from 1999:

• The wealthiest 50% of family units held 94.4% of the wealth, leaving 5.6% to the bottom 50%.

• The poorest 10% of family units experienced a 28% decline in average wealth between 1970 and 1999.

• The average wealth for the richest 10% of family units increased by 122% ($442,468 - $980,903) in 1999.

• Women who are unattached or with families comprise the highest rates of poverty in Canada (Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women, 2005).

• The United States surpasses all other industrialized countries in the rates of poverty and lower life expectancy (Frisof, 2004).

• In the United States, 12.7% of the population were assessed as living below the poverty line in 2004, representing 37 million Americans (DeNavis-Walt, Procter, & Mills, 2005).

Racism and Discrimination

• In a study conducted by Canadian Heritage (1998), visible minorities were the victims of 61% of hate crimes.

• Visible minorities have reported the highest level of perceived discrimination, with 20% of visible minorities reporting discrimination or unfair treatment (Statistics Canada, 2003).

• According to Statistics Canada (2003), 1.8 million Canadians (8% of the population) have reported experiencing discomfort or feeling out of place due to their ethnicity, skin colour, language, or other cultural factors.

• Plous and Williams (1995) found that 20% of people surveyed in the United States believed that African Americans possessed innately inferior thinking ability.

Aboriginal Populations

• Aboriginal individuals have long been the recipients of unjust social practices in Canada (Poonwassie & Charter, 2001). French and English settlers established political and social establishments that ignored the traditional values of Aboriginal individuals.

• According to Statistics Canada (2006), approximately 80,000 Aboriginal people attended residential schools.

• 39.9% of Aboriginal individuals aged 18 years and older and living on-reserve rated their health as “excellent” or “very good” in 2002–2003. The percentage of the general population who rated their health as excellent” or “very good” was 59.6% (Health Canada, 2004).

Healthcare

• In the 2002, 43.6 million Americans were without healthcare insurance and 18,000 deaths were attributed to financial barriers to healthcare access (Institute of Medicine, 2002).

• In the United States, uninsured women with breast cancer are 30-50% more likely to die from breast cancer as compared to insured women with breast cancer (Institute of Medicine, 2002).

• Socioeconomically disadvantaged Canadians are more likely to report having seen a physician in the past year and are more likely to have unmet health needs (Federal, Provincial and Territorial Advisory Committee on Population Health, 1999).

Mental Health

• Researchers have discovered an inverse relationship between socioeconomic status and depression, meaning the lower the socioeconomic status, the higher the incidence of mental health concerns (Gallo & Matthews, 2003; Lorant et al., 2007).

• Socioeconomically disadvantaged individuals have been found to receive later diagnoses, fewer referrals to mental health specialists, and poorer prognoses compared to higher socioeconomic groups (Feinstein, 1993).

• Socioeconomically disadvantaged individuals are more likely to visit their primary physicians compared to other socioeconomic groups (Dunlop, Coyte, & McIsaac, 2000) and are more likely to experience mental health concerns such as depression (Martens, 2001).

Housing and Homelessness

• Socioeconomically disadvantaged individuals are twice as likely to live in shared, rented, or substandard housing arrangements (Cooper, 2001).

• Chronically homeless individuals constitute only a small fraction of the homeless population, but they account for over half of all public shelter residences (Kuhn & Culhane, 1998).

• Children who are homeless are more likely to experience mental and physical health concerns, developmental delays, and behaviour problems as compared to children in poor housing conditions (Buckner, 2004).

• The level of affordable housing units created in Canada fell from 24,000 in 1980 to 940 in 2000 (Canadian Council on Social Development, 2002).

Food Insecurity

• The United States Department of Agriculture (2006) found that 12.6 million people reported that at least one member of their family has missed a meal due to food shortages in the previous year.

• According to the National Food Population Health Survey, 10.2% of Canadian households in 1998/99 reported food insecurity, representing 3 million people (including 678,000 children) (Che & Chen, 2001; Rainville & Brink, 2001).

• Children from families receiving social assistance were found to be 13 times more likely to experience hunger compared to non-social assistance families (McIntyre et al., 2002).

• In 2004, Food Stamp program recipients increased by 12% in the United States (Economic Research Service, 2005).

Education

• Statistics Canada (2001a) reported that 5.8 million Canadians aged 25 year and over had not successfully completed high school.

• 42% (9 million) of Canadians aged 16 to 65 have literacy skills below the level considered to be necessary to live and work in today’s society (Riddell, 2004).

• Saunders (2005) found that 26.3% of full-time workers without a high-school diploma made less than $10, compared to 6.5% of university graduates.

Work and Wages

• The median wage in Canada rose from $15.30 in 2001 to $16.91 in 2005 (Statistics Canada, 2005). However, in Canada, 20.8% of non-student full-time workers over the age of 20 earn $12 or less per hour (Statistics Canada, 2005).

• 17.4% of single parents in Canada who work full-time make less than $10 per hour.

• Between 1989 and 2004, temporary hiring among new employees rose from 12% to 22% (Morissette & Johnson, 2005).

• Almost 40% of individuals with low income are deemed to be “working poor” (Fleury & Fortin, 2004). This accounts for 1.5 million Canadians. Working poor is defined as an individual who works over 910 hours per year but still falls below poverty cutoffs (Fleury & Fortin, 2004).

Gender Inequality

• Women earn approximately 71% of what men earn for a year of full-time work (Pay Equity Task Force, 2004). In 1997, the average income for a Canadian woman was $19,800 compared to $32,100 for a male Canadian (Statistics Canada, 2000).

• Half of women have survived at least one incident of sexual of physical violence during their lifetime (Statistics Canada, 1993).

• Statistics Canada (2001b) reported that a minimum of one million children have witnessed violence against their mothers. In 52% of these cases, the mother reportedly feared for her life.

Reflection Questions

1. What feelings did you experience while reading these statistics?

     

2. Which statistics surprised you the most? Why?

     

3. Do you believe that statistics regarding social injustice are easy to find? Why or why not?

     

4. How does this information impact your work as a counsellor?

     

References

Buckner, J. C. (2004). Impact of homelessness on children. In D. Levinson (Ed.), Encyclopedia of homelessness (pp. 74-76). Thousand Oaks, CA: Berkshire.

Canadian Council on Social Development. (2002). The progress of Canada’s children: 2002 highlights. Retrieved from

Canadian Heritage. (1998). Hate and bias activity in Canada. Retrieved from

Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women. (2005). Fact sheet: Women and poverty. Retrieved from

Che J., & Chen, J. (2001). Food insecurity in Canadian households. Health Reports, 12, 11-22.

Cooper, M. (2001.) Housing affordability: A children's issue. Retrieved from



DeNavis-Walt, C., Procter, B. D., & Mills, R. J. (2005). Income, poverty, and health insurance coverage in the United States: 2004. Retrieved from

Dunlop, S., Coyte, P., & McIsaac, W. (2000). Socio-economic status and the utilisation of physicians’ services: Results from the Canadian national population healthy survey. Social Science and Medicine, 51(1), 123-133.

Economic Research Service. (2005). Food and nutrition assistance programs and the general economy. Retrieved at

Federal, Provincial, and Territorial Advisory Committee on Population Health. (1999). Toward a healthy future: Second report on the health of Canadians. Retrieved from

Feinstein, J. S. (1993). The relationship between socioeconomic status and health: A review of the literature. Milbank Quarterly, 71(2), 279-322.

Fleury, D., & Fortin, M. (2004). Canada’s working poor. Horizons, 7(2), 51-57.

Frisof, K. (2004). Affordable health care for all: Turning the dream into a reality. Democratic Left, 32(2), 1-7.

Gallo, L. C., & Matthews, K. A. (2003). Understanding the association between socioeconomic status and physical health: Do negative emotions play a role? Psychological Bulletin, 129(1), 10-51.

Health Canada. (2004). Healthy Canadians: A federal report on comparable health indicators 2004. Retrieved from

Institute of Medicine. (2002). Care without coverage: Too little, too late. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Kerstetter, S. (2002). Rags and riches: Wealth inequality in Canada. Retrieved from

Kuhn, R., & Culhane, D. (1998). Applying cluster analysis to test a typology of homelessness by pattern of shelter utilization: Results from the analysis of administrative data. American Journal of Community Psychology, 26(2), 207-232.

Lorant, V., Croux, C., Weich, S., Deliege, D., Mackenbach, J., & Ansseau. (2007). Depression and socio-economic risk factors: 7-year longitudinal study. British Journal of Psychiatry, 190, 293-298.

Martens, W. H. (2001). A review of physical and mental health in homeless populations. Public Health Review, 29, 13-33.

McIntyre, L., Glanville, N. T., Officer, S., Anderson, B., Raine, K. D., & Dayle, J. B. (2002). Food insecurity of low-income lone mothers and their children in Atlantic Canada. Canadian Journal of Public Health, 93, 411-415.

Morissette, R., & Johnson, A. (2005). Are good jobs disappearing in Canada? Retrieved from

Pay Equity Task Force. (2004). Pay equity: A new approach to a fundamental right. Ottawa, ON: Author.

Plous, S., & Williams, T. (1995). Racial stereotypes from the days of American slavery: A continuing legacy. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 25, 795-817.

Poonwassie, A., & Charter, A. (2001). An Aboriginal worldview of helping: Empowering approaches. Canadian Journal of Counseling, 35(1), 63-73.

Rainville B., & Brink, S. (2001). Food insecurity in Canada, 1998-1999. Retrieved from

Riddell, W. C. (2004). Education, skills, and labour market outcomes: Exploring the linkages in Canada. In J. Gaskell & K. Rubenson (Eds.), Educational outcomes for the Canadian workplace (pp. 21-55). Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press.

Saunders, R. (2005). Does a rising tide lift all boats? Low-paid workers in Canada. Retrieved from

Statistics Canada. (1993, November 18). The violence against women survey highlights. The Daily.

Statistics Canada. (2000). Women in Canada 2000: A gender-based statistical report. Ottawa, ON: Author.

Statistics Canada. (2001a). 2001 census. Retrieved from english/census01/home/index.cfm

Statistics Canada. (2001b). Family violence in Canada: A statistical profile 2001. Retrieved from

Statistics Canada. (2003). Ethnic diversity survey: Portrait of a multicultural society. Retrieved from

Statistics Canada. (2005). 2005 Labour Force Survey micro datafile. Ottawa, ON: Author.

Statistics Canada. (2006). 2006 census. Retrieved from english/census/index.cfm

United States Department of Agriculture. (2006). Household food security in the United States. Retrieved from

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