Browsing by Author "Balzer, Andy"

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    Caractérisation de la population francophone de la région du Grand Saint John (2015- 2020)
    (l’Institut de recherche, de données et de formation du Nouveau-Brunswick de l’Université du Nouveau-Brunswick, 2023-02) McDonald, Ted; Balzer, Andy; Cameron, Jillian; Mokhtar, Rawia
    Le bilinguisme rend la province du Nouveau-Brunswick (N.-B.) unique au sein du Canada, de par sa forte diversité linguistique et son incroyable richesse culturelle. Cependant, comme le Nouveau-Brunswick est la seule province officiellement bilingue du Canada, certains segments de sa population sont confrontés à des obstacles linguistiques. Par exemple, il n’y a que peu d’information sur la taille de la communauté francophone dont les membres préféreraient un service en français dans les régions à majorité anglophone. Sans cette information, il est, toutefois, impossible de représenter précisément la demande potentielle de services sociaux et de soins de santé en français et de trouver le moyen de répondre à cette demande le plus efficacement possible. Dans ce rapport, nous tentons de remédier aux obstacles linguistiques, particulièrement dans la région du Grand Saint John1 en élaborant un profil de la population francophone de cette région. Pour combler cette lacune au niveau des connaissances et éclairer les discussions sur les obstacles linguistiques au N.-B., les auteurs de ce rapport exposent une analyse de la mesure dans laquelle les services de santé, entre autres services d’aide, peuvent être offerts en français dans les régions à majorité anglophone de la province. Parmi les aspects visés, mentionnons l’état de santé des résidents, l’usage des services de santé, la réception des services sociaux, la composition des ménages et le profil socio-économique du quartier. Nous examinons comment ces aspects ont changé au fil du temps et nous les comparons à celles des Néo-Brunswickois francophones et anglophones qui vivent dans une communauté urbaine majoritairement francophone et des résidents anglophones qui vivent dans la RGSJ, à Moncton et dans le reste du N.-B.2 Étant donné qu’à ce jour, la seule information sur la préférence linguistique que l’on trouve dans les données administratives du N.-B. est tirée des dossiers du système de l’assurance-maladie de la province, il y a des raisons de croire que l’on sous-estime peut-être la préférence linguistique réelle concernant les services de santé. C’est pourquoi nous envisageons des ajustements en fonction des résultats sur les connaissances linguistiques régionales indiqués dans le recensement canadien de 2016.
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    Characterizing The Francophone Population in Greater Saint John (2015-2020)
    (New Brunswick Institute for Research, Data and Training, 2023-02) McDonald, Ted; Balzer, Andy; Cameron, Jillian; Mokhtar, Rawia
    Bilingualism makes the province of New Brunswick (NB) unique within Canada, bringing with it a high level of linguistic diversity and cultural enrichment. However, as Canada’s only officially bilingual province, NB also faces issues of language barriers affecting segments of its population. For instance, there is limited information about the size of the Francophone community that would prefer service in French in majority Anglophone areas. Without this information, it is impossible to accurately represent the potential demand for French-language health and social services and how to meet that demand most efficiently. In this report, we attempt to address language barriers specifically in the Greater Saint John (GSJ) region by constructing a population profile of the Francophone population of GSJ. To fill this knowledge gap and to inform discussions of language barriers in NB, this report supports an analysis of the extent to which health and other support services might be provided in French in majority-Anglophone areas of the province. Measures of interest include residents’ health status, health service use, social services receipt, household composition, and neighbourhood socioeconomic profile. We consider how these measures have changed over time and how they compare for Francophone and Anglophone New Brunswickers living in urban majority-French communities, as well as Anglophone residents living GSJ, Moncton, and the Rest of NB. To date, the only information on language preference in NB administrative data is based on records in the province’s Medicare system, and there is reason to believe this might underestimate actual language preference for health services. As such, we consider adjustments based on measures of area-level language fluency as reported in the 2016 Canadian Census.
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    Comparisons of high school equivalency and high school diplomas in NB
    (New Brunswick Institute for Research, Data and Training, 2019) Leonard, Philip; McDonald, Ted; Balzer, Andy
    Is getting a GED as “good” as getting a high school diploma? New Brunswickers who drop out of high school but later complete their high school education commonly receive a General Equivalency Diploma – otherwise known as a GED. Some may assume that having a GED or other equivalency degree is comparable to having a high school diploma. Meanwhile, others ask if having a GED is better than having no degree at all. To shed light on this issue, researchers at NB-IRDT look at the evidence surrounding labour market outcomes. This report uses data from the New Brunswick Institute for Research, Data and Training (NB-IRDT) from the 2016 General Social Survey to examine labour market outcomes – including employment and average income – for New Brunswickers possessing a high school equivalency diploma, a traditional high school diploma, or less than a high school education. New Brunswickers with levels of education beyond high school are not included in this comparison. Findings show that while employment rates and average incomes for individuals with an equivalency diploma are not as high as for those with a high school diploma, they are considerably higher than those of individuals who did not complete a high school education. At the time of the survey, 51% of individuals with an equivalency diploma were employed, versus 60% with a high school diploma and 31% without a high school education. Individuals with an equivalency diploma were earning approximately $31,742 a year, compared to $32,381 for those with a high school diploma and $19,893 for those without a high school education. Previous studies have asked whether there is any advantage to getting a GED over not getting one at all. The results suggest the answer is “yes” – in the labour market, at least.
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    Graduate retention in New Brunswick: 2019 and 2020 cohort update
    (New Brunswick Institute for Research, Data and Training, 2023-01) Balzer, Andy; McDonald, Ted; Miah, Pablo; Mokhtar, Rawia
    This report is the first in a series of annual updates on post-secondary graduates’ retention in New Brunswick (NB) that will be released by the New Brunswick Institute for Research, Data and Training (NB-IRDT) each year. These reports provide an overview of NB graduates’ retention patterns since the previous reporting period, and these periodic updates on graduates’ retention trends can help guide public policy discussions around education and training strategies to attract youth to study, work, and live in NB. The current study, which looks at 2019 and 2020 graduate cohorts, updates the graduate retention results published by Bhuiyan et al. (2020), which considered individuals who graduated as recently as 2018. However, two changes in methodology used in this report mean that results presented here are not directly comparable to the previous results (Bhuiyan et al., 2020). The first change is that in this report, the data on university graduates come from the Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission (MPHEC), rather than the universities themselves. Though graduation numbers are very close between the two sources, data matching rates are lower with the new source. Second, a more conservative definition of retention is adopted in this report, whereby changes in Medicare status prior to an individual’s graduation date are used to assess retention post-graduation. These methodological changes are discussed in more detail in the report, but the net result is that estimated retention rates in this report are somewhat lower than comparable results in the previous report. We therefore present the full historical series of retention rates so that changes over time can be assessed using a consistent methodology.
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    Mobility and retention of labour market training program participants
    (New Brunswick Institute for Research, Data and Training, 2022-02) Balzer, Andy; Bhuiyan, Erfan Mahmood; Leonard, Philip; McDonald, Ted
    This report measures the retention in New Brunswick of participants in programs designed and implemented by the Government of New Brunswick’s Department of Post-Secondary Education, Training and Labour (PETL) to help individuals prepare for, obtain, and maintain employment in New Brunswick. Information pertaining to these programs and their participants is captured in the ContactNB database, housed on the secure platform at the New Brunswick Institute for Research, Data and Training (NB-IRDT). These programs – also referred to as “interventions” – were analyzed to determine whether trained individuals remained in New Brunswick after program completion. 1-year, 3-year, and 5-year retention rates are presented for individuals who completed these interventions between 1999 and 2018, inclusive.
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    New Brunswick population and demographic counts - June 2022
    (New Brunswick Institute for Research, Data and Training, 2022-07) Balzer, Andy; McDonald, Ted; Mokhtar, Rawia
    This report is the second in a series of ongoing reports that will be published by the New Brunswick Institute for Research, Data and Training (NB-IRDT) in December and June of each year. These reports provide an overview of changes to the New Brunswick (NB) population that have occurred since the previous reporting period. The first report contains additional background information about this project. The current report (June 2022) not only updates the measures reported last October by extending the original study period to investigate population movement from January 1, 2020 to July 1, 2021, but it also describes results for additional or modified measures not included in the first report. Additional measures include NB Returnees and Intra-Provincial Migration, and modified measures include Migration Periods, Immigrant Status, and NB Geographies. References to the first report are included in cases where the methodologies align.
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    New Brunswick population and demographic counts - October 2021
    (New Brunswick Institute for Research, Data and Training, 2021-12) Balzer, Andy; McDonald, Ted; Mokhtar, Rawia
    This report is the first in a series of semi-annual reports that will be published by the New Brunswick Institute for Research, Data and Training (NB-IRDT) in October and March of every year. These reports provide an overview of the New Brunswick (NB) population and changes that have occurred in the population since the previous reporting period. Timely data on population flows are useful for informing public policy across a range of areas, such as immigrant retention and mobility and the mobility decisions of graduates from post-secondary education. These updates also provide a robustness check on population estimates periodically reported by Statistics Canada.
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    Rapport récapitulatif: Caractérisation de la population francophone de la région du Grand Saint John (2015- 2020)
    (l’Institut de recherche, de données et de formation du Nouveau-Brunswick, 2023-02) McDonald, Ted; Balzer, Andy; Cameron, Jillian; Mokhtar, Rawia
    Le bilinguisme rend la province du Nouveau-Brunswick (N.-B.) unique au sein du Canada, de par sa forte diversité linguistique et son incroyable richesse culturelle. Cependant, comme le Nouveau-Brunswick est la seule province officiellement bilingue du Canada, certains segments de sa population sont confrontés à des obstacles linguistiques. Par exemple, il n’y a que peu d’information sur la taille de la communauté francophone dont les membres préféreraient un service en français dans les régions à majorité anglophone. Sans cette information, il est, toutefois, impossible de représenter précisément la demande potentielle de services sociaux et de soins de santé en français et de trouver le moyen de répondre à cette demande le plus efficacement possible. Dans ce rapport, nous tentons de remédier aux obstacles linguistiques, particulièrement dans la région du Grand Saint John1 en élaborant un profil de la population francophone de cette région. Pour combler cette lacune au niveau des connaissances et éclairer les discussions sur les obstacles linguistiques au N.-B., les auteurs de ce rapport exposent une analyse de la mesure dans laquelle les services de santé, entre autres services d’aide, peuvent être offerts en français dans les régions à majorité anglophone de la province. Parmi les aspects visés, mentionnons l’état de santé des résidents, l’usage des services de santé, la réception des services sociaux, la composition des ménages et le profil socio-économique du quartier. Nous examinons comment ces aspects ont changé au fil du temps et nous les comparons à celles des Néo-Brunswickois francophones et anglophones qui vivent dans une communauté urbaine majoritairement francophone et des résidents anglophones qui vivent dans la RGSJ, à Moncton et dans le reste du N.-B.2 Étant donné qu’à ce jour, la seule information sur la préférence linguistique que l’on trouve dans les données administratives du N.-B. est tirée des dossiers du système de l’assurance-maladie de la province, il y a des raisons de croire que l’on sous-estime peut-être la préférence linguistique réelle concernant les services de santé. C’est pourquoi nous envisageons des ajustements en fonction des résultats sur les connaissances linguistiques régionales indiqués dans le recensement canadien de 2016.
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    Small-area population forecasts for New Brunswick with 2016 Census Data: Cohort-component model
    (New Brunswick Institute for Research, Data and Training, 2018) Peters, Paul; Balzer, Andy; Daigle, Bethany
    What will the population of New Brunswick look like in the coming years? New Brunswick has one of Canada’s fastest aging populations and lowest levels of in-migration, along with declining fertility rates. A shrinking population presents a challenge to economic growth and has significant implications for other factors, such as the province’s healthcare system, tax base, and social support. Thus, population decline in New Brunswick has been a salient political concern for many years now. Researchers at the New Brunswick Institute for Research, Data and Training (NB-IRDT) have been analyzing provincial population trends for a number of years. Earlier reports suggested the province’s population would continue to shift due to inter-provincial outmigration, with growth concentrated in cities through rural to urban migration. More recent reports using newly available 2016 Census data update the population statistics, accounting for the fact that New Brunswick experienced an overall population decline from 2011 to 2016. In these reassessments of population forecasts for small areas in New Brunswick, results are more negative than those of the 2017 reports – possibly due to data reflecting the sluggish provincial economy following the 2008 recession. The most current population forecasts suggest net migration is the main driver of population growth; and while the cities of Moncton and Fredericton are predicted to see population increases, the remaining areas in New Brunswick will arguably see either population decline or stagnation. The labour force is likely to follow the same trends as the general population. The authors argue that these trends could reflect a cyclical population downturn that will eventually reverse itself with renewed population growth; or they could indicate a future trend of population decline. Ongoing research may be able to tell.
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    Small-area population forecasts for New Brunswick with 2016 Census Data: Simplified model report
    (New Brunswick Institute for Research, Data and Training, 2018) Peters, Paul; Balzer, Andy; Daigle, Bethany
    What will the population of New Brunswick look like in the coming years? New Brunswick has one of Canada’s fastest aging populations and lowest levels of in-migration, along with declining fertility rates. A shrinking population presents a challenge to economic growth and has significant implications for other factors, such as the province’s healthcare system, tax base, and social support. Thus, population decline in New Brunswick has been a salient political concern for many years now. Researchers at the New Brunswick Institute for Research, Data and Training (NB-IRDT) have been analyzing provincial population trends for a number of years. Earlier reports suggested the province’s population would continue to shift due to inter-provincial outmigration, with growth concentrated in cities through rural to urban migration. More recent reports using newly available 2016 Census data update the population statistics, accounting for the fact that New Brunswick experienced an overall population decline from 2011 to 2016. In these reassessments of population forecasts for small areas in New Brunswick, results are more negative than those of the 2017 reports – possibly due to data reflecting the sluggish provincial economy following the 2008 recession. The most current population forecasts suggest net migration is the main driver of population growth; and while the cities of Moncton and Fredericton are predicted to see population increases, the remaining areas in New Brunswick will arguably see either population decline or stagnation. The labour force is likely to follow the same trends as the general population. The authors argue that these trends could reflect a cyclical population downturn that will eventually reverse itself with renewed population growth; or they could indicate a future trend of population decline. Ongoing research may be able to tell.
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    Summary Report: Characterizing the Francophone population in Greater Saint John (2015- 2020)
    (New Brunswick Institute for Research, Data and Training, 2023-02) McDonald, Ted; Balzer, Andy; Cameron, Jillian; Mokhtar, Rawia
    Bilingualism makes the province of New Brunswick (NB) unique within Canada, bringing with it a high level of linguistic diversity and cultural enrichment. However, as Canada’s only officially bilingual province, NB also faces issues of language barriers affecting segments of its population. For instance, there is limited information about the size of the Francophone community that would prefer service in French in majority Anglophone areas. Without this information, it is impossible to accurately represent the potential demand for French-language health and social services and how to meet that demand most efficiently. In this report, we attempt to address language barriers specifically in the Greater Saint John (GSJ) region by constructing a population profile of the Francophone population of GSJ. To fill this knowledge gap and to inform discussions of language barriers in NB, this report supports an analysis of the extent to which health and other support services might be provided in French in majority-Anglophone areas of the province. Measures of interest include residents’ health status, health service use, social services receipt, household composition, and neighbourhood socioeconomic profile. We consider how these measures have changed over time and how they compare for Francophone and Anglophone New Brunswickers living in urban majority-French communities, as well as Anglophone residents living GSJ, Moncton, and the Rest of NB. To date, the only information on language preference in NB administrative data is based on records in the province’s Medicare system, and there is reason to believe this might underestimate actual language preference for health services. As such, we consider adjustments based on measures of area-level language fluency as reported in the 2016 Canadian Census.
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    Summary Report: Graduate retention in New Brunswick: 2019 and 2020 cohort update
    (New Brunswick Institute for Research, Data and Training, 2023) Balzer, Andy; McDonald, Ted; Miah, Pablo; Mokhtar, Rawia
    This report is the first in a series of annual updates on post-secondary graduates’ retention in New Brunswick (NB) that will be released by the New Brunswick Institute for Research, Data and Training (NB-IRDT) each year. These reports provide an overview of NB graduates’ retention patterns since the previous reporting period, and these periodic updates on graduates’ retention trends can help guide public policy discussions around education and training strategies to attract youth to study, work, and live in NB. The current study, which looks at 2019 and 2020 graduate cohorts, updates the graduate retention results published by Bhuiyan et al. (2020), which considered individuals who graduated as recently as 2018. However, two changes in methodology used in this report mean that results presented here are not directly comparable to the previous results (Bhuiyan et al., 2020). The first change is that in this report, the data on university graduates come from the Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission (MPHEC), rather than the universities themselves. Though graduation numbers are very close between the two sources, data matching rates are lower with the new source. Second, a more conservative definition of retention is adopted in this report, whereby changes in Medicare status prior to an individual’s graduation date are used to assess retention post-graduation. These methodological changes are discussed in more detail in the report, but the net result is that estimated retention rates in this report are somewhat lower than comparable results in the previous report. We therefore present the full historical series of retention rates so that changes over time can be assessed using a consistent methodology.