Virtual Library of Newspaper Articles

Child poverty sad survivor of the boom

Rate in Ontario was higher in 2000 than in 1989

Report blames loss of social supports to poor families

The Toronto Star, PATRICIA ORWEN, SOCIAL POLICY REPORTER, March 26, 2003

There are Read More ..or children in Ontario now than there were during the last economic boom in 1989, and they are deeper in poverty, says a new report by an organization that monitors child welfare.

In the boom year of 2000, the province was home to 390,000 children defined as poor, a 41 per cent increase over the decade, according to yesterday's report by Ontario Campaign 2000, part of a national coalition seeking to hold Parliament to its 1989 pledge to end child poverty by 2000.

"The saddest part of all this is that the economy improved over that time and a lot of people became Read More .. prosperous, but the most vulnerable were left behind," said Pedro Barata, author of Child Poverty Persists, Time to Invest in Children and Families.

"One in four poor children live in a family with full-time, full-year earnings," Barata told a news conference at Queen's Park. "Their situation can be attributed to government policy that scrapped social supports for families with children. The economy just wasn't strong enough to fill the void."

Between 1996 and 2000, the average income of two-parent families whose incomes fell below Statistic Canada's low-income cutoff mark declined by nearly $900, the report says. That put those families $10,500 below the unofficial poverty line. Single mothers were $8,600 below the line.

Campaign 2000 defines poor children as those whose total pre-tax family income falls below that cutoff. A single parent with one child living in Toronto in 2000 would be deemed poor at an income below $22,964.

Children of the working poor are worse off for several reasons, Barata said. For one thing, Ontario's minimum wage has been frozen at $6.85 an hour for seven years, despite inflation of 15 per cent over the same period. The minimum wage now ranks fifth in the country, behind Nunavut ($8.50), British Columbia ($8), Quebec ($7.30), and Yukon ($7.20), Barata said.

The report also blames the removal of rent controls, cuts to subsidized child care and welfare, and the lack of health supports such as prescription coverage and dental care for families leaving social assistance.

In 1995, the province cancelled all new social housing starts. With no rent control after 1998, rent hikes outstripped inflation. Average rent was $815 by 2002.

Welfare rolls are down, but those who remain in the system are mostly single parents. Their incomes on assistance have declined more than 35 per cent since 1995, when payments were cut and then frozen.

The report shows that child-poverty numbers rose precipitously in the recession of the early '90s, then fell 100,000 between 1995 and 2000 as the economy improved. But Barata says a broader look at the statistics "shows that things were not as good as they seem.

"Back in 1989, we reached a peak in a very similar period in the economy, when there were lots of jobs and growing prosperity among families," he said.

"That year, through the combination of economic growth and good social programs, we were able to bring child poverty down to 11 per cent. Skip ahead a decade, after we have seen devastating cuts to programs that families rely on, and the result is that we haven't been nearly as successful in bringing child poverty rates down. In 2000, in the same kind of economy, the rate was 14 per cent. The main lesson we've learned out of this is that the economy can only go so far in bringing the numbers down ... to go any further, governments need to act."

The Boy Crisis

TEDx Dr Warren Farrell

TEDx - The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It

One of the foremost speakers and thinkers on gender issues

It's a crisis of education. Worldwide, boys are 50 percent less likely than girls to meet basic proficiency in reading, math, and science.

It's a crisis of mental health. ADHD is on the rise. And as boys become young men, their suicide rates go from equal to girls to six times that of young women.

It's a crisis of fathering. Boys are growing up with less-involved fathers and are more likely to drop out of school, drink, do drugs, become delinquent, and end up in prison.

It's a crisis of purpose. Boys' old sense of purpose-being a warrior, a leader, or a sole breadwinner-are fading. Many bright boys are experiencing a "purpose void," feeling alienated, withdrawn, and addicted to immediate gratification.

So, what is The Boy Crisis? A comprehensive blueprint for what parents, teachers, and policymakers can do to help our sons become happier, healthier men, and fathers and leaders worthy of our respect.

Associated Press

Why boys are in trouble

Boys have been painted as the bad guys in the push to encourage girls to succeed, leaving many young men feeling confused and alienated, wondering what they did wrong

The Associated Press
January 5, 1999

According to psychologist and author William Pollack, 'sports are the one arena in which many of society's traditional strictures about masculinity are often loosened, allowing boys to experience parts of themselves they rarely experience elsewhere.'

When Harvard Medical School psychologist William Pollack administered a test to a group of 150 teenaged boys a few years ago, the results were shocking.

The Boy Crisis Book - Warren Farrell - John Gray

The Boy Crisis Book

The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It

Authors- Waren Farrell PhD and John Gray PhD

What is the boy crisis?

It's a crisis of education. Worldwide, boys are 50 percent less likely than girls to meet basic proficiency in reading, math, and science.

It's a crisis of mental health. ADHD is on the rise. And as boys become young men, their suicide rates go from equal to girls to six times that of young women.

It's a crisis of fathering. Boys are growing up with less-involved fathers and are more likely to drop out of school, drink, do drugs, become delinquent, and end up in prison.

The Boy Crisis

The War Against Boys: How misguided feminism is harming our young men

Canadian flag
Health Canada Publication

The Invisible Boy: Revisioning the Victimization of Male Children and Teens

"... the existence of a double standard in the care and treatment of male victims, and the invisibility and normalization of violence and abuse toward boys and young men in our society.

Despite the fact that over 300 books and articles on male victims have been published in the last 25 to 30 years, boys and teen males remain on the periphery of the discourse on child abuse.

Few workshops about males can be found at most child abuse conferences and there are no specialized training programs for clinicians. Male-centred assessment is all but non-existent and treatment programs are rare. If we are talking about adult males, the problem is even greater. A sad example of this was witnessed recently in Toronto. After a broadcast of The Boys of St. Vincent, a film about the abuse of boys in a church-run orphanage, the Kids' Help Phone received over 1,000 calls from distraught adult male survivors of childhood sexual abuse. It is tragic in a way no words can capture that these men had no place to turn to other than a children's crisis line."

American Psychological Association

American Psychological Association
Dating Violence Statistics in the United States

Nearly one in 10 girls and one in 20 boys say they have been raped or experienced some other form of abusive violence on a date, according to a study released Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association.

The mean T-shirt: From the Stupid Factory

Todd Goldman says his popular boy-bashing T-shirts are simply funny.

So why are retailers having second thoughts? Read More ..

Why boys are in trouble

Boys have been painted as the bad guys in the push to encourage girls to succeed, leaving many young men feeling confused and alienated, wondering what they did wrong

The Associated Press

When Harvard Medical School psychologist William Pollack administered a test to a group of 150 teenaged boys a few years ago, the results were shocking.

Where the boys are

The Globe and Mail
February 1, 2003

Academically, boys across the country are lagging behind the girls, but a Montreal public school has seen dramatic improvement by separating the sexes in classes. It allows teachers to tailor curriculum and style to suit each sex. The result? The number going on to college has nearly doubled. INGRID PERITZ reports

MONTREAL -- The teenage girls at James Lyng High School like to flirt with boys. They like to tease them, joke with them, even date them sometimes. But attend class with them? As the giggling girls in one math class this week might say, "Gross."

Luckily, they don't have to. Coed James Lyng splits boys and girls up at the classroom door. The division of the sexes is credited with helping turn a faltering inner-city high school into an education success story.