The Canadian Unemployment Insurance System

A healthy unemployment insurance system is the most powerful stabilizer of the economy. However, the current Employment Insurance program cannot play an important role to solve the problem for specific groups (ex: male workers, students, and immigrants), who are more likely to lose their jobs but less likely to get EI benefits from government during the economic recession.

Men

Table 1 show that men’s unemployment rate (8.1%) is much higher than women’s (6.2%) in Nov. 2009. Furthermore, men’s percentage of change unemployment (44.2%) is higher than women’s (33.9%) from Nov. 2008 to Nov. 2009. Men are more likely to lose their jobs than women in current financial crisis. This recession hit heavily upon men-dominated industries, such as construction, finance and manufacturing. However, sectors have held up relatively well in education, health care and service, which will create more jobs for women (Peck: 14).

However, the chart 3 in the following page demonstrates that females are more likely to receive EI benefits than males. The logistic regression shows the group of female is 2.067 times the odds change as compared to the odds in the comparison group of male, which can be seen the blue bar of female is 2.067 times higher than the bar of male.

The result is men have been contributing a smaller and smaller share of family income. Men began to worry about lose their wife and lose the respect of their children. Study shows that small income changes have significant effects on marriage rates among the poor and the lower-middle class. Furthermore, unemployed men are more likely to beat their children while children with unemployed fathers are particularly vulnerable to psychological problems as well.

Young Adults

Table 2 shows that the young adult’s unemployment rate (15.9%) is much higher than all labour force of both sex and 15 years over (8.5%) in Nov. 2009. Furthermore, young adult’s percentage of change unemployment (2.7%) is higher than compare group’s (-0.8%) from Oct. 2009 to Nov. 2009, which means young adult’s unemployment is still increasing while other groups’ unemployment began drop currently. Young adults are more likely to lose their jobs compared to others because of their limited work experiences.

However, full time students are less likely to get Employment Insurance benefits from government than others. In the chart 4, the Exp (B) for part time students is 11.178 and the Exp(B) for all weeks part time is1.