TITLE:
Income Disparities: The Case of Unskilled Workers in Canada (1996-2010)
AUTHORS:
Samir Amine, Phillippe Scrimger
KEYWORDS:
Income Gaps, Intra-Categorical, Public Redistribution
JOURNAL NAME:
Theoretical Economics Letters,
Vol.5 No.1,
February
3,
2015
ABSTRACT: In this paper we analyse the gaps in economic
welfare that exist between skilled and unskilled labor in Canada. Following the
work of Chardon [1] [2]and Amossé and Chardon [3], we use compe- tency levels as defined in the National Classification of Occupations to
distinguish these two groups and then analyse the income disparities that exist between
them. Our main findings show that unskilled workers are
worse off economically than their skilled counterparts and that the Canadian
workforce seems to be more bipolarized than the Canadian population as a whole.
We also find strong intra-categorical inequalities within unskilled labor,
workers from the sales and services occupational domain being at a disadvantage
relative to their peers in other occupational groups. Finally, we show that
state intervention, through taxation and social transfers, plays an important
role in tightening the inter-categorical and intra-categorical income gaps.