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LWF

Longitudinal Worker File

Description

  • Nature: Longitudinal administrative database on employees.
  • Usage: The structure of the LWF makes it particularly well-suited to studying labour turnover and mobility, earnings dynamics and a host of other issues.
  • Content: The LWF is designed to provide information on employment dynamics in Canada. It is based on a 10% random sample of Canadian workers, and contains – on a year-by-year basis – information on their demographic characteristics, on the jobs they hold, the firms in which they work and the earnings they receive.
  • Coverage period: 1983 onwards.

Funded Projects

We aim to understand how providing access to affordable childcare can affect economic productivity. We know from a wide body of academic literature that child-rearing responsibilities impose a severe penalty on the careers of working women, and governments have occasionally attempted to address this by providing public subsidies for universal childcare access. We study one prominent example of such a subsidy program, in which Quebec introduced a generous universal subsidy in 1997 that limited childcare costs to five dollars per day. The specific implementation of the program allows us to compare working mothers with children who are narrowly eligible versus narrowly ineligible for the new program. By comparing otherwise-similar individuals with differing levels of access to childcare, we can estimate how access to childcare affects the future productivity and career trajectories of the individuals affected. We also study whether this subsidy improved the productivity of firms by comparing Quebec to Canadian provinces that did not introduce any new subsidy programs. Our research will provide future policymakers with a better understanding of the costs and benefits of childcare subsidy programs.

Related Data Sets
LWF, T2-LEAP

Related Research Themes
Incomes, Industry and Firm Analysis, Labour Markets

Papers and Publications

June, 2017

March, 2017

Related Data Sets
ASM, ASM-I, CBSA Customs, CEEDD, CIP, CFA, LEAP, LWF, NALMF, SFSME, SIBS, T2-LEAP, TEC, WES

Related Research Themes
Incomes, Industry and Firm Analysis, International, Labour Markets

Presented at Data Day

Author(s)

Natalie Goodwin, Statistics Canada RDC Analyst, Western University RDC

Related Data Sets
ASM, ASM-I, CBSA Customs, CEEDD, CFA, CIP, LEAP, LWF, NALMF, SFSME, SIBS, T2-LEAP, TEC, WES

Related Research Themes
Incomes, Industry and Firm Analysis, International, Labour Markets

Keywords: RDC

Presented at Data Day

Outline

Accessing business microdata for research purposes at the Canadian Centre for Data Development and Economic Research (CDER) at Statistics Canada

  • CDER basics
  • Data sets available for access to CDER
  • Application process
  • Future directions
  • Other information

Related Data Sets
ASM, ASM-I, CBSA Customs, CEEDD, CFA, CIP, LEAP, LWF, NALMF, SFSME, SIBS, T2-LEAP, TEC, WES

Related Research Themes
Incomes, Industry and Firm Analysis, International, Labour Markets

Keywords: CDER; microdata; data access

Presented at Data Day

January, 2017

Turnover within an industry creates a turbulent situation for workers, where a firm's shutdown leads to permanent layoffs. Using data drawn from the Longitudinal Worker File, a Canadian firm-worker matched employment database, we investigate the impact of industry shutdown rates on the rate of permanent layoffs and workers' wages. We quantify the effects of permanent layoffs on worker outcomes such as employment status and earnings. These effects vary across industries, firms and workers. Further, selection induces a bias in the effect of shutdown rates on permanent layoffs and wages. After accounting for firm shutdown (selection), we find that an increase in industry shutdown rates generally increases the probability of permanent layoffs and decreases workers' wages.

Paper: https://doi.org/10.1186/s40172-017-0057-0

Note: presentation is from 2014

Author(s)

Kim P. Huynh, Bank of Canada

Yuri Ostrovsky, Statistics Canada

Related Data Sets
LWF

Related Research Themes
Industry and Firm Analysis, Labour Markets

Keywords: Worker separation, Firm survival, Selection

JEL Codes: J24; J31; J63; C35

May, 2015

Related Data Sets
ASM, ASM-I, CBSA Customs, CEEDD, CFA, CIP, LEAP, LWF, NALMF, SFSME, SIBS, T2-LEAP, TEC, WES

Related Research Themes
Incomes, Industry and Firm Analysis, International, Labour Markets

Keywords: CDER; proposal

JEL Codes: Y9

Author(s)

Kim P. Huynh works at the Bank of Canada

Related Data Sets
ASM, ASM-I, CBSA Customs, CEEDD, CFA, CIP, LEAP, LWF, NALMF, SFSME, SIBS, T2-LEAP, TEC, WES

Related Research Themes
Incomes, Industry and Firm Analysis, International, Labour Markets

Keywords: CDER; proposal; microdata

JEL Codes: Y9

November, 2012