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Power Resources and the Canadian Welfare State: Unions, Partisanship and Interprovincial Differences in Inequality and Poverty Reduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 October 2014

Rodney Haddow
Rodney Haddow*
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
*
Department of Political Science, University of Toronto, 100 St. George St., Toronto, ON, M5S 3G3, Email: r.haddow@utoronto.ca
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Abstract

This article seeks to measure and explain interprovincial differences in inequality and poverty reduction since the 1980s for non-elderly Canadian families. These variations are compared with dissimilarities among the advanced capitalist welfare states, where they are large. Interprovincial discrepancies are shown to be ample by this international standard. The article also finds that power resources theory, which draws attention to the role of union strength and partisan incumbency in explaining welfare state variations, accounts for an important part of these interprovincial differences. These findings suggest that sub-national jurisdictions can be more consequential for welfare state outcomes than comparative research has acknowledged, and that power resources accounts deserve more attention in Canadian social policy scholarship.

Résumé

Cet article cherche à mesurer et à expliquer les différences interprovinciales en matière d'inégalités et de réduction de la pauvreté chez les familles canadiennes depuis les années 1980. Comparées avec celles existant entre certains pays membres de l'OCDE, ces différences apparaissent fort importantes. Cet article conclue également que la théorie des ressources de pouvoir, qui insiste sur le rôle des partis politiques et des syndicats, est en mesure d'expliquer dans une large mesure ces différences interprovinciales. De tels résultats démontrent donc que les juridictions sous-nationales peuvent être plus conséquentes en matière sociale que la littérature en politique comparée ne le suggère habituellement, et que la théorie des ressources de pouvoir mérite plus d'attention dans l'étude des politiques sociales au Canada.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 47 , Issue 4 , December 2014 , pp. 717 - 739
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 2014 

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References

Data Sources

International Labour Organization, Social Security Department, SSI Indicators, http://www.ilo.org/dyn/ilossi/ssimain..home Google Scholar
Cross-National Data Centre in Luxembourg, Luxembourg Income Study, http://www.lisdatacenter.org/our-data/ Google Scholar
Statistics Canada, CANSIM, http://www5.statcan.gc.ca/cansim/home-accueil?lang=eng Google Scholar
Statistics Canada, Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics, http://www23.statcan.gc.ca/imdb/p2SV.pl?Function=getDataF&Item_Id=55238&SurvId=132027 Google Scholar

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