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The purpose of this study is to compare the gender gaps in work–life balance satisfaction across occupations. Due to data limitations, the studies of work–life balance satisfaction have generally relied on researcher collected data. As a result, large-scale studies encompassing all occupations in the same social and policy context are rare. In several cycles of the Canadian General Social Survey, the respondents are directly asked about their work–life balance (WLB) satisfaction. The present paper takes advantage of this unique opportunity to compare the gender gap in WLB satisfaction across occupations in Canada.

This paper pools four cross-sectional datasets (N = 37,335). Multivariate regression analysis is used.

Women in management and education are found to have a lower WLB satisfaction than their male counterparts. Conversely, and rather surprisingly, a WLB satisfaction advantage is found for women in transport over males in this occupation. Further investigation shows that the female WLB advantage in transport is driven by the relatively low WLB satisfaction of males in this occupation, while the opposite is true for education.

The findings are discussed in light of the WLB policies and their increasing gender-blindness.

This paper is the first large-scale study which compares the gender gap in WLB satisfaction across occupations, in a given policy context.

Using the Canadian Census of 2016, the present study examines the Black and White gap in compensating differentials for their commute to work.

The data are from the Canadian Census of 2016. The standard Mincerian wage regression, augmented by commute-related variables and their confounders, is estimated by OLS. The estimations use sample weights and heteroscedasticity robust standard errors.

In the standard Mincerian wage regressions, Black men are found to earn non-negligibly less than White men. No such gap is found among women. When the Mincerian wage equation is augmented by commute duration and its confounders, commute duration is revealed to positively predict wages of White men and negatively associate with wages of Black men. At the same time, in the specifications including commute duration and its confounders, the coefficient for the dummy variable identifying Black men is positive with a non-negligible size. The latter pattern indicates wage discrepancies among Black men by their commute duration. Again, no difference is found between Black and White women in these estimations.

The main caveat is that due to data limitations, causal estimates could not be produced.

For the Canadian working men, the uncovered patterns indicate both between and within race gaps in the impact of commuting on wages. Particularly, Black men seem to commute longer towards relatively lower paying jobs, while the opposite holds for their White counterparts. However, Black men who reside close to their work earn substantially more than both otherwise identical White men and Black men who live far away from their jobs. The implications for research and policy are discussed.

This is the first paper focused on commute compensating differentials by race using Canadian data.

The purpose of this paper is to, using several cycles of the Canadian General Social Survey (GSS) covering 2010–2015, examine the patterns of work-life balance (WLB) satisfaction and work-life segmentation by sexual orientation.

In this paper, multivariate regression analysis is used.

The analysis shows that men living with a male partner are more satisfied with their WLB than their heterosexual counterparts. No statistically significant difference is found between women who live with a female partner and their heterosexual counterparts, in WLB satisfaction. Work-life segmentation is operationalized by the odds of being at the top levels of the life satisfaction scale without being satisfied with the circumstances of one’s job. Controlling for a wide range of characteristics, working Canadians living with a same-sex partner, regardless of their genders, are found more likely to have segmented their work and life domains than their heterosexual counterparts.

The paper, for the first time, investigates how sexual orientation relates to WLB satisfaction and work-life segmentation. This study exploits a unique opportunity offered by the Canadian GSSs in which WLB satisfaction is directly surveyed, all the while partnered sexual minorities are identifiable.

The present paper examines how satisfaction with one's physical appearance associates with hopeful feelings, as well as optimism.

This paper uses the Canadian General Social Survey of 2016 and multivariate regression analysis.

At constant levels of current socioeconomic attainment, perceived intergenerational social mobility and self-confidence, satisfaction with one's physical appearance is found to associate with a greater hopefulness and more optimistic expectations about the future.

The present paper is the first economic study of how physical appearance associates with hope and optimism.

The present study assesses how sibship size affects child quality as measured by educational attainment.

The data are from the Canadian General Social Surveys (GSS) of 1986, 1990, 1994 and 1995. The sample is restricted to the individuals born in Canada between 1946 and 1965, that is, the baby-boom generation. In addition to controlling for parental education, the sibship size is instrumented by a non-binary variable created based on the sex composition of the sibship. While most previous studies have pooled both genders, the present paper produces by gender estimates

The OLS estimates are statistically significant, negative and moderately large for both male and female baby boomers. When the sibship size is instrumented, the estimates indicate that one additional sibling had reduced the educational attainment of male baby boomers by almost half a year. No causal effect for the sibship size is found for female baby boomers.

This is the first paper on the effects of sibship size on educational attainment, using Canadian data.

Over the years, many upstream health policies have sought to reduce smoking across populations. While smoking has been substantially reduced, the effects of these policies on education-smoking gradient remain unclear. The present paper compares the education-smoking gradient among the Generation X and the millennials, who grew up with different types of upstream policies.

The study relies on regression analysis. The data are from the Canadian Tobacco, Alcohol and Drugs Survey of 2017, with the sample restricted to those born between 1965 and 1995.

At the zero-order, the education-smoking gradient has not significantly flattened from Generation X to millennials. And, accounting for the channels of impact of education on smoking does not substantially change this pattern.

The implications for health inequalities associated with socioeconomic status, and tobacco consumption reduction policies, are discussed.

This paper is the first study of the kind using Canadian data.

Using the Canadian General Social Survey of 2016, a large nationally representative dataset, the present paper compares different types of flexible work arrangements in their associations with employee wellbeing and organizational outcomes.

The dataset contains 7,446 observations. Informed by the past scholarship, eight outcomes of job satisfaction, work-life balance satisfaction, organizational belonging, job motivation, perceived advancement prospects, perceived job security, workplace social capital, and turnover intentions are investigated.

First, employees with both flextime and flexplace, and only flextime, have a significantly higher job and work-life balance satisfaction. Second, the possibility of working from home without any discretion over timing does not elicit positive wellbeing outcomes. Third, the results show that the combination of flexplace and flextime is synergistic. Fourth, rather unexpectedly, the positive associations of the FWAs with work-life balance satisfaction are stronger among men and women without dependent children. Finally, there are significant positive associations for the combination of flexplace and flextime, and flextime alone, with other outcomes, such as organizational belonging and job motivation, especially among men.

Given the nonrandom assignment of the workers into the FWAs, the results only reflect ceteris paribus correlations.

This is the first Canadian study of flexible work arrangements, using a large nationally representative dataset.

The purpose of this paper is to use data mined from Google Trends, in order to predict the unemployment rate prevailing among Canadians between 25 and 44 years of age.

Based on a theoretical framework, this study argues that the intensity of online leisure activities is likely to improve the predictive power of unemployment forecasting models.

Mining the corresponding data from Google Trends, the analysis indicates that prediction models including variables which reflect online leisure activities outperform those solely based on the intensity of online job search. The paper also outlines the most propitious ways of mining data from Google Trends. The implications for research and policy are discussed.

This paper, for the first time, augments the forecasting models with data on the intensity of online leisure activities, in order to predict the Canadian unemployment rate.

Does religiosity impact wages differently for males and females? Does the impact on wage of different dimensions of religiosity, namely the importance of religion, the frequency of religious practice with others and individually, differ for men and women? The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Using the Canadian Ethnic Diversity Survey, made public in 2004, this paper investigates whether there are evidences for a gender difference in the impact of religiosity on wage. A Mincerean wage regression is estimated using both multiple linear regression and Heckit.

Religious females are found to receive a premium over their labour earnings, through the frequency of private-prayer while the same dimension of religiosity penalizes males’ mean wage. The by-gender impact slightly widens for the subsample of employees, while it diminishes for the self-employed.

Making use of the most comprehensive data set available and standard methodology, the paper creates stylized facts that are of interest to the scholars of a multiplicity of disciplines.

It advances the body of knowledge about the impact of religiosity on productivity and whether it has a by-gender component.

The research also informs policy-makers in their decision about the appropriate level of accommodation of religiosity in the workplace.

The present work is the first research paper examining the by-gender impact of different dimensions of religiosity on productivity thereby wage.

The relationship between religiosity and female labour market attainment has been widely investigated for the USA; however, no comparable study has been undertaken for the Canadian context. The purpose of this paper is to redress this critical oversight of the literature by examining the impact of religiosity on Canadian female labour supply, both at extensive and intensive margins.

Using data from the Canadian Ethnic Diversity Survey, the authors consider all the measurable dimensions of religiosity, for the pooled sample, as well as by religious group. A wide array of control variables is included in the regressions to insure the reliability of the estimates.

The authors find that overall religiosity inversely relates to female labour supply in Canada. When the impact of religiosity is assessed on a by religion basis, it is revealed that Protestant females are penalized, by far the most.

The result is comparable with the pattern uncovered in the USA for Conservative Protestant females. Unlike what can be expected, no statistically significant difference is detected between religious-nones and Catholics, suggesting a convergence of gender ideologies.

The investigation reveals interesting patterns that not only contribute to the current state of literature, but also motivate future research. Fairlie and Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition techniques are also used to further explore attainment gaps among the religious groups.