Jesse Matheson

Women respondents report higher household food insecurity than do men in similar Canadian households

OBJECTIVE We investigated factors accounting for the consistently higher levels of household food insecurity reported by women in Canada. DESIGN Two cycles of the Canadian Community Health Survey for the years 2005/2006 and 2007/2008 were pooled to examine the association between household food insecurity, measured using the Household Food Security Survey Module and other metrics, and respondent sex. We stratified households as married/cohabiting (in which case, the household respondent was chosen randomly) or non-married (single/widowed/separated/divorced) and adjusted for differences in household characteristics, including the presence of children. SETTING Canada. SUBJECTS Analysis was restricted to households dependent on employment/self-employment and whose reported annual household income was below

Prices and Social Behaviour: Evidence from Adult Smoking in Canadian Aboriginal Communities

CAN 100,000. Exclusions included respondents less than 18 years of age, any welfare receipt, and missing food insecurity, marital status, income source and amount, or household composition data. RESULTS For non-married households, increased food insecurity in female- v. male-led households was accounted for by significant differences in household socio-economic characteristics. In contrast, in married/cohabiting households with or without children, higher food insecurity rates were reported when the respondent was female and neither respondent characteristics nor socio-economic factors accounted for the differences. CONCLUSIONS Higher rates of food insecurity in non-married households in Canada are largely attributable to womens socio-economic disadvantage. In married households, women appear to report higher levels of food insecurity than men. These findings suggest a possible bias in the measurement of population-level household food insecurity in surveys that do not account for the sex of the respondent in married/cohabiting households.

A Simple Model of Homophily in Social Networks

This paper provides estimates of tobacco price elasticity explicitly distinguishing between two price effects: the direct effect, reflecting individual reaction to a price change, and the indirect effect, whereby price influences the individual by changing community smoking behaviour. Canadas Aboriginal communities are small and secluded, allowing for plausible identification of reference groups on a relatively large scale. Estimates suggest a 10% increase in price decreases daily smoking by 0.91 percentage points (2.11%), occasional smoking by 1.24 percentage points (8.27%) and average smoking intensity by 0.15 cigarettes per day (2.9%). It is found that the indirect effect almost doubles the response to a change in tobacco prices over the direct effect alone.