Shelley Phipps

Leaving Boys Behind: Gender Disparities in High Academic Achievement

Using data from the “Monitoring the Future” surveys, this paper shows that from the 1980s to the 2000s, the mode of girls’ high school GPA distribution has shifted from “B” to “A,” essentially “leaving boys behind” as the mode of boys’ GPA distribution stayed at “B.” In a reweighted Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition of achievement at each GPA level, we find that changes to gender differences in post-secondary expectations, in particular expectations for attending graduate or professional school, are the most important factors accounting for this trend after controlling for school ability and they occur as early as the eighth grade.

Measuring Poverty among Canadian Households: Sensitivity to Choice of Measure and Scale

This paper uses microdata from the 1986 Statistics Canada Family Expenditure Survey to demonstrate that inequality-sensitive poverty measures such as the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke (1984) index are as sensitive to the equivalence scale embodied in the poverty line as the more frequently used head count and poverty gap measures. Indices of the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke variety are useful, however, for revealing demographic subgroups experiencing extreme deprivation, information not provided by the more standard poverty measures. The paper also demonstrates that our understanding of the relative poverty experiences of important demographic subgroups such as children and the elderly can be influenced by our choice of equivalence scale.

Is all bullying the same

BackgroundWe ask whether verbal abuse, threats of violence and physical assault among Canadian youth have the same determinants and whether these determinants are the same for boys and girls. If these are different, the catch-all term “bullying” may mis-specify analysis of what are really different types of behavior.MethodsWe analyze five cohorts of Canadian youth aged 12-15 from the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY). There are 11475 observations in total. Pearson’s correlation coefficients and six different multivariate strategies are used.ResultsThere are many faces to bullying, in terms of its form and relative frequencies for boys versus girls. Although some characteristics of an adolescent are strong predictors of being subject to more than one type of bullying, some other characteristics are only correlated with specific types of bullying.ConclusionsThe many faces of bullying, and their correlation with different factors, imply different policy interventions may be needed to address each issue effectively.

Measuring poverty and inequality in northern Canada

We provide the first direct comparisons of poverty and inequality in the North (i.e. Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut) with elsewhere in Canada. We do so by first constructing a northern equivalence scale. Based on an Engel methodology, we estimate the extra income needed by families in the North to devote the same share to necessities as those in southern Canada. Using econometric techniques and public use microdata from the Survey of Household Spending, we find that cost of living is 1.46 times higher in the North. We use this scale to adjust the incomes of northern residents so that purchasing power is, for the purposes of our model, equal to that in the South. We subsequently measure poverty and inequality in northern versus southern Canada over the period 1997–2009. Our findings indicate that incidence of poverty is much higher in the North. For example, 31.1% of northern families with children are poor, compared with 9.9% in the South. Moreover, while approximately 10% of the southern population is represented in each income decile, 31.1% of northern families with children are in the bottom 10%. Only 3% have incomes that would place them among the richest 10% of Canadians.

The social complexities of disability: Discrimination, belonging and life satisfaction among Canadian youth

Although disability has been on the psychological agenda for some time, there is limited empirical evidence on the life satisfaction of youth with a disability, especially the effect of discrimination and factors that might mitigate it. We address this critical gap by examining the complex social experiences of youth with a disability and the culminating effect on life satisfaction. We ask three questions: (1) Is having a disability associated with lower life satisfaction? (2) Do youth with a disability experience discrimination and, if so, how does this affect life satisfaction? (3) Can a sense of belonging mitigate the negative effect of discrimination? We address these questions using microdata from the Canadian Community Health Survey, which is nationally representative. Our sample consists of 11,997 adolescents, of whom 2193 have a disability. We find that life satisfaction is lower among youth with a disability. Moreover, many experience disability-related discrimination, which has a negative effect on life satisfaction. However, this is mitigated by a sense of belonging to the community. Specifically, youth with a disability do not report lower life satisfaction when high belonging is present, even if they experience discrimination. This is true for boys and girls. We conclude that belonging, even if it is not disability-related, is protective of well-being. This has important implications for policy whereby organizations that cultivate a sense of belonging may alleviate the harm sustained by youth who experience discrimination as a result of their disability.