Childcare in Canada

Question:

Hello!
I’m hoping someone can help me out here. I need help finding up-to-date statistics related to child care in Canada:

• Demographics of those accessing of child care
• Money spent on child care including subsidies
• Businesses that offer child care to employees

Any help at all would be much appreciated!


Answer:
The following sources have been suggested:

• Employment patterns of families with children: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/75-006-x/2015001/article/14202-eng.htm

• General Social Survey, Cycle 25: Family, 2011 Public Use Microdata Files (12M0025X): http://www5.statcan.gc.ca/olc-cel/olc.action?objId=12M0025X&ObjType=2&lang=en&limit=0 
• The 2011 survey updated most of the information collected in previous surveys, including leaving the family home, conjugal history (marriages, common-law unions, separations and divorces), children (biological, adopted or step), maternity and parental leave, childcare arrangements, intentions to form (or re-form) a union, fertility intentions, custody and financial support agreements and work history.

• Child care in Canada study:http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/89-652-x/89-652-x2014005-eng.htm
• Using the 2011 GSS on Families, this report provides an overview of child care in Canada, examining its overall use, factors influencing use, types of child care arrangements, and cost.

These are available through the DLI.

PALS 2006 Children

Question

I need to download the data from the PALS survey conducted by Statistics Canada in 2006. The only data available in the Odesi dataset is the adult dataset. Do you know where I can download the data for participants who were children <15 years of age?

Answer

I have received a response back from subject matter, and unfortunately there was no PUMF created for the <15 year population.

New Files on Statistics Canada Nesstar

Hello,

We are pleased to inform you that the following files are now available on the Statistics Canada Nesstar Webview site (http://www62.statcan.ca).

Aboriginal Peoples Survey, 2006: Adults
Aboriginal Peoples Survey, 2006: Children and Youth
Aboriginal Peoples Survey, 2001: Adults off the reserve
Aboriginal Peoples Survey, 2001: Children off the reserve
Aboriginal Peoples Survey, 1991

Anyone can view the metadata for these files on the Statistics Canada Nesstar site. Only DLI Contacts however will be able to access the data files on the site. If you are a DLI Contact and would like to access and manipulate data files on the Statistics Canada Nesstar site, please send an email to dli-idd@statcan.gc.ca to request a password. Please note that the DLI data files available through Nesstar are subject to the DLI license agreement.

Internet Use by Children

Question

Does anyone know, offhand, if stats are collected on internet usage by children under 15? I can find all sorts of surveys, but the lowest age I can find is 15.

Answer

The National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY) collected data on computer and internet use by children under 15. You can locate examples of the types of questions used to collect these data by doing a quick search for "Internet" in the questionnaires for NLSCY cycle 7 (http://www.statcan.gc.ca/cgi-bin/imdb/p2SV.pl?Function=getInstrumentLink&SurvId=4450&SurvVer=1&InstaId=16044&InstaVer=7&lang=en&db=imdb&adm=8&dis=2).

NLSCY microdata are available through the Research Data Centres (http://www.statcan.gc.ca/rdc-cdr/index-eng.htm) and custom tabulations can be produced on request on a cost recovery basis (I can refer you to an Account Executive in our Toronto regional office if custom tables are of interest). Public use microdata files for this survey haven't been produced since the late 90's due to confidentiality reasons as this is a longitudinal survey.

I also looked at the documentation for the Canadian Internet Use Survey (2007) and General Social Survey cycle 19 on time use but the target populations for these surveys appear to be too old for your needs.

I hope that this is helpful.

Type 2 Diabetes in Children since 1970’s

Question

I have a student looking for the prevalence of Type 2 diabetes in children going back to the 1970's to date or whatever she can find. Anything we are finding is not specific to type 2. Thanks in advance for your help.

Answer

This information doesn't appear to be readily available in CANSIM, on the StatCan website or in the DLI collection. I have therefore asked our health contacts to advise. I will be sure to get back to you through the dlilist as soon as I receive their recommendations.

The third reference in the Diabetes section of Healthy People, Healthy Places (82-229-XWE; http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/82-229-x/2009001/status/dia-eng.htm#n3) refers to a non-StatCan publication on Type 2 diabetes in children and may also be of interest to the student:
American Diabetes Association. Type 2 diabetes in children and adolescents. Diabetes Care 2000;23(3)381-389.

Additional Information

Some data on diabetes by type for the 12-19 age group may be available as a custom tabulation from the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS). They unfortunately aren't available for children under 12.

Our contacts provided the following information about the custom CCHS data that may be available:

"We don't ask diabetes type to respondents and also our target population is 12+. We did create a derived variable in the CCHS for 2009 to derive the type of diabetes a respondent has. It is based on the series of questions in the chronic conditions module that we ask respondents who answer yes to having diabetes. It's called CCCDDIA. (...) Any tabulation by age group would be a custom tabulation. Unfortunately given that the national estimates for 2009 for the age group 12-19 are suppressed, this tabulation would not be feasible. It might be possible to use the two year data (...)." The division can look into the feasibility of producing this if these data are of interest to the student.

Our contacts also directed us to the following article from Health Reports http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/82-003-x/2008001/article/10533-eng.htm which may be of interest.

Please let me know if the student is interested in the custom tables and I will refer you to an Account-Executive who can work with the author division to investigate this further and confirm what tables could be produced, for what years and at what cost.