Want to better understand what poverty is really like in Canada? More than income data is needed, says new research

Data about nutrition, dental care and utility bills could be critical to uncovering the complexity of poverty in Canada, according to a new project by Food Banks Canada. 

In partnership with the Maple Leaf Centre for Food Security, Maytree and the Environics Institute for Survey Research, Food Banks Canada developed the Material Deprivation Index (MDI), a list of data points that measure a household’s standard of living beyond its financial income. 

Many of the indicators were deemed important by those who had experienced poverty firsthand, said Professor Geranda Notten, whose research focuses on poverty reduction policies. 

Such measures have been used extensively in the UK and Europe, and Statistics Canada developed a Canadian Index of Multiple Deprivation, which included a national lens, and adjustments for provincial and regional contexts. 

However, Canada’s official poverty line is still measured by the Market Basket Measure (MBM), which calculates the cost of goods and services required to achieve a basic standard of living.  

Focusing on financial cost and household income can skew our perception of the various factors that make up poverty, said Notten. As a result, it can also skew policy development that tackles poverty. 

For example, in Food Banks Canada’s report, the organization highlighted that they had observed a steep increase in the number of visitors to food banks nationally, and had suspected that the 10 per cent poverty rate estimated by the MBM was inaccurate. 

They noted that in the 2021 Canadian Income Survey, 18 per cent of Canadian families had experienced food insecurity in the past 12 months.

“The standard of living that two households may achieve with a given amount of income may be quite different, even if they are otherwise the same in many respects,” the report said.

“For example, one household may have some savings, while another may have substantial debt.

“One household may have rented a home for many years from ma-and-pa owners with whom they have a personal relationship, so their rent has remained relatively low and predictable over many years. 

“Another household may have recently moved and be renting from a landlord who charges as much as the law and the market will tolerate.” 

“When your metric is income poverty, there is a bit of a bias towards making sure that your income increases,” Notten said. 

“There are so many other policy measures that can have a very tangible effect on people’s living standard.” 

Quantifying the “subjective” experience of poverty

In the European Union and the UK, material and social deprivation indicators have been widely reported on, and they inform policy infrastructure, Notten said. 

For instance, the UK’s National Centre for Social Research found that in 2021 and 2022, 18 per cent of children in the UK were experiencing material deprivation. However, just under half of those children were not living in a low-income family. 

In both the EU and the UK, the list of factors that make up material deprivation is divided between those affecting adults and those involving children. For adults, data points included new clothes and access to leisure activities. 

At the same time, for children, there was a focus on fresh fruits and vegetables daily, a place to do their homework, and the ability to go on school trips.

When constructing their list of variables, Notten and the Food Banks Canada team used the European methodology as a starting point. 

They initially developed 19 items that signify material deprivation in the Canadian adult population (over 18-years-old). 

The list was then narrowed down to 11: access to transportation, appropriate footwear and clothing, nutritious protein sources, a home with a comfortable temperature, the ability to pay bills on time and meet unexpected expenses, having some spare spending money for oneself, participating in special occasions, buying gifts for loved ones, and accessing dental care at least once a year. 

“Being able to have friends over for a social visit, having a place where a child can do their homework in peace, and having access to a telephone are not ‘basic necessities’ in the strictest sense of the term,” the report pointed out. 

“However, a household that does not have access to these activities and types of goods and services most likely has a standard of living that falls below what is acceptable in Canada.”

Notten observed that there were distinct differences between how those living in poverty and those not living in precarious conditions perceived the relative importance of certain variables to the overall quality of life in Canada. 

For example, just under half of all of those surveyed said that being able to give gifts to loved ones was an important facet of being able to live a full life in Canada. 

“But when you actually look at people who are unemployed, reporting a very low income, or single parenting, these groups are much more likely to say this is a necessity.”

Similarly, in adapting the MDI to a pan-Canadian context, an Indigenous person on the advisory committee suggested adding something around community ceremonies or occasions to the index.

“That was another [data] item where people with lived experience of poverty, people with Indigenous backgrounds, and people of immigrant descent found it important,” Notten said.

Of the 11 deprivation items that the research team settled on, 37.4 per cent of respondents experienced at least one, 25 per cent experienced two types of deprivation, and 16.9 per cent experienced three or more types of deprivation. 

When overlapping with geographic information, the survey found that those living in Ontario and the Atlantic provinces were most likely to experience two—or three-item deprivation—and at a significantly higher rate than the MBM reports. 

Why isn’t Canada measuring poverty through material deprivation?

Public health bodies in both Ontario and Quebec have sought to develop material deprivation indices on a small-area level. These indices, however, seek to link socioeconomic deprivation with health outcomes specifically. 

Alongside the Canadian Index of Multiple Deprivation, Statistics Canada also launched the Dimensions of Poverty Hub in 2019. 

This hub measures indicators such as unmet housing needs, unmet health needs, food insecurity, literacy and numeracy, and youth not in employment, education, or training. However, these indicators are also based on the MBM.

While the dashboard shows that the poverty rate has been increasing steadily since 2020, it does not show the proportion of households or individuals experiencing multiple indicators of deprivation at the same time. 

While these questions could easily be baked into several StatsCan surveys, Notten said the department needs funding—and hence political approval—to carry out this research. 

Having worked on poverty reduction policy for a few years, she has noticed that there is resistance to shifting away from income as a measure of poverty in Canada. 

“It seems to me that there is perhaps an overconfidence in what income can actually do, what it can and cannot measure,” she said. 

“I often get comments that material deprivation measures are subjective. But then again, poverty is subjective, too.”

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