New Reform Strategies and Welfare Participation in Canada

Abstract

This paper measures the extent to which declines in Canadian welfare participation were associated with novel and aggressive welfare reforms. Referred to as new reform strategies, these welfare policy variables are: work requirements, diversion, earning exemptions, and time limits. Controlling for province-specific benefit levels, eligibility requirements, GDP growth, labor market conditions and demographics, the data suggest that welfare participation rates were more than one percentage point lower (equivalent to at least a 13% decline in welfare participation) in provinces where new reforms were present. Work requirements with strong sanctions for non-compliance had the sharpest negative associations with participation rates. Adoption of new reform strategies explains at least 10 percent of observed declines in welfare participation from 1994 to 2009, roughly twice as much as cuts to benefit levels and stricter eligibility requirements can explain.