Child deprivation in Ontario: A (less than perfect) comparison with Europe

This study assesses how child deprivation in Ontario compares to that of Ontario’s population in
general and that of children in eight European high-income countries (France, Germany, United
Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden). This research has been motivated
by the publication of UNICEF’s 10th Child Report Card. Due to lacking data the report card only
compares child deprivation for Europe. For Ontario, however, deprivation information is
available in the 2009 Ontario Material Deprivation Survey. Being a province that is close to
Canada’s average socio-economic performance, replicating the report card methodology allows
exploring how child deprivation in Ontario, and possibly Canada, compares to Europe.
This study finds that Children in Ontario have somewhat higher deprivation levels (11.7%) than
the Ontario population as a whole (9.9%). In comparison to the eight European countries,
Ontario also has higher child deprivation levels, ranking right after France which has the highest
deprivation rates and 19th out of 30 countries. Just like their European peers, deprivation of
Ontario children is associated with families consisting of lone parents and fewer employed
household members as well as caretakers having low education and / or low income.
Nevertheless, the relative disadvantage that such children in Ontario face seems smaller than in
the European countries. As in Europe, there is considerable lack of overlap between income poor
and materially deprived households: this study finds that about 6% of the children are both
income poor and deprived; 6% are deprived only and 10% are income poor only (78% are
neither income poor or deprived). In sum, rather than resembling the Nordic countries, child
deprivation in Ontario resembles more to that in Belgium, Germany, United Kingdom and
especially France.
As Canada’s current focus on ‘low income’ measures excludes half of the materially deprived
households, these findings suggest that using material deprivation measures would also
contribute to a better and more nuanced understanding of poverty in Canada.