Pension Plans

Question

A student working on a research projet here at Concordia is looking for the following data:

Number of pension plans (or members of those plans) by industry and by type of plans (Defined benefit and Defined contribution pension plans) at the national level. This data seems to be available from the "Pension plans in Canada" database but I could find no currently available product that would answer the question. I know custom tables could be produced at a cost, but would the information be available in any other form through DLI or DSP?

The other aspect of the research has to do with level of unionization by industry also at the national level. Those numbers are available from CANSIM (Labour force survey estimates (LFS), employees by union coverage, table 282-0077). Now, would there be any survey that would cross-index this variable (unionization by industry) with the other one (type of pension-plan per industry)? In other words, would it be possible to associate, say the "defined benefit segment" of industry X with its level of unionization?

Answer

I researched what I could for you, but came up with very similar results:

1) Pension Plans in Canada : Key Tables (74-508-XWE) has some great tables, but nothing that crosses industry with union participation. It does cross public vs. private firms, but that is not detailed enough for your patron. I think that one of the only options to you then is to explore a custom extraction for a fee.

2) The Labour Force Survey does not ask pension questions, so it would never be crossed with union participation.