Eric G. Moore

Canada's increasing housing affordability burdens

This study uses national survey and census data on shelter costs and income to describe changes in the proportion and the number of low‐income households spending more than half of their income on shelter. While affordability problems increased consistently over the last two decades for almost all classes of households, the problems are highly concentrated among those with low‐incomes. Women household maintainers are significantly more likely to experience problems and the number of income recipients in a household is a key indicator of a potential problem. While all regions and major cities had increasing problems, the data show major differences across regions and urban centres. No correlation is found between the growth of cities or the growth in rent levels and the growth of the proportion of low‐income households with severe affordability problems. Housing prices were remarkably stable during the 1990s and cannot be claimed as the main cause of the escalating problem. However, strong correlations relate the growth of affordability problems to city size and to the prevailing rent level, suggesting that land rent is a factor in determining the problems spatial incidence and that continued concentration of the population in major cities will continue to fuel the growth of the problem. The most disturbing finding is that, for the most vulnerable groups, the prevalence and severity of affordability problems worsened during the 1990s, reflecting the consequences of a larger and longer trend toward increasing income inequality in Canadian society. The paper points to other research which links the affordability issue to homelessness and argues that the trends in affordability burdens be considered as ripe for serious policy intervention at all three levels of government. While specific policy conclusions cannot be based on this study, the results do point to the growing need for a change in Canadian housing policy.

Activity limitation and chronic conditions in Canada's elderly, 1986-2011.

Together with all other developed countries, Canadas population is experiencing a significant increase in the proportion that is elderly. This paper examines basic linkages between individual ageing, the prevalence of various chronic health conditions, functional limitation and the receipt of help in activities of daily living (ADL) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) for the Canadian population using recent data from the National Population Health Survey (NPHS) as well as the Health and Activity Limitation Surveys (HALS) and the two General Social Surveys (GSS) with health data. Presented are age- and sex-specific prevalence of chronic conditions and logistic regression is used to assess the impacts of different chronic conditions on the receipt of help for IADL and ADL. The importance of gender and living alone in influencing the receipt of help and also of use of formal agencies is presented using additional data from HALS. Findings from these analyses are also used to project changes in the distribution of health status defined by disability and receipt of help with IADL/ADL and, secondarily, by chronic condition. These analyses imply increases in demand for a range of health related services which will be 50 to 100% greater than the growth in the total elderly population.

Stable Structure and Local Variation: A Comparison of Household Flows in Four Metropolitan Areas

The Annual Housing Survey Metropolitan Samples are used to examine the structure of local mobility flows. An accounting framework is developed to identify mobility in terms of relocations between different segments of the housing stock, by households with varying socio-demographic profiles, and distinguished by the circumstances of the moves themselves. Flows are examined for the sample cities of Atlanta, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Phoenix. For each city, a matrix of flows is created for the basic dimensions of city-suburb and own-rent categories. Odds ratios are used to examine the stability of relative movement tendencies both across housing submarkets and across cities. The most significant finding is that, despite the considerable variation in overall mobility rates between the sample cities, there is a great deal of consistency in the structure of the rates. The distribution of types of decisions for moves and the relative likelihood of moving for different submarket groups were surprisingly similar over very different local contexts. On the other hand, there are substantial differences in the spatial and submarket characteristics of flows. The high degree of submarket interaction in Phoenix is strongly contrasted with the relative isolation of the central city and suburbs in Detroit. The preliminary findings indicate the importance of the Annual Housing Survey as a means of elucidating the structure of the flows within metropolitan submarkets.

MOBILITY INTENTION AND SUBSEQUENT RELOCATION

Conceptualization and analysis of the relations between dwelling and neighborhood satisfaction, movement intention, and mobility presented in previous research suffer from two major deficiencies: (1) the role of other life events such as marriage, divorce, retirement, and loss of spouse are usually ignored; (2) important differences between different sociodemographic groups are obscured. In this paper a more general model of mobility including other life events is presented and the subgroup differences are explored in terms of the difficulties experienced by disadvantaged groups, particularly the elderly, in translating expectations into action. Two sets of longitudinal data are utilized, one from the Community Development Strategies Evaluation undertaken in nine U.S. cities and the other from the Quality of Life Surveys collected by the Institute of Behavioural Research at York University for a Canadian sample. Consistent results are obtained which show that not only do substantial numbers of respondents...

Fertility decline in three Ontario cities, 1861-1881

The analysis of individual records from the 1861 and 1881 manuscript censuses from 3 Ontario (Canada) cities--Toronto London and Kingston--provided documentation of the importance of sociodemographic factors in the decline in marital fertility in this time period. A total of 11504 records for women 15-49 years of age were available for review. The dependent variable was the number of children 0-4 years old for each married woman; independent variables were mothers religion mothers birthplace maternal age social class and region. In 1861 fertility differentials were most closely associated with age maternal birthplace and locality. Women 25-34 years of age who were born in Ireland had significantly higher fertility than their counterparts born in Canada or elsewhere and than older Irish-born women. In addition marital fertility was highest in Kingston and lowest in Toronto. By 1881 however the effects of city were no longer significant and the strongest differentials were related to religion. The largest declines in marital fertility between 1861 and 1881 occurred among Methodists; Anglicans showed reductions in the middle range while Catholics and Presbyterians experiences the smallest reductions. A somewhat weaker but still significant inverse correlation was found between social class and marital fertility with women from the lowest social group exhibiting the highest fertility. A comparison of fertility changes between 1861 and 1881 further revealed evidence of both birth spacing and birth stopping. The average fertility reduction in the 20-39 year age group was 20% while that in the 40 years and over group was 40%. Although birthplace was no longer a significant correlate of marital fertility in 1881 Canadian-born women of Irish descent had higher fertility than others. Finally there was a significant closing of the fertility differential between Toronto and the other 2 cities in the study period. This reduction in spatial differentiation reflected the increasing correspondence of fertility behavior to religion and general diffusion through the urban hierarchy.