Cardus

On Saturday we launched "Raydio Pennings": the audio version of Cardus Co-Founder Ray Pennings's weekly Insights email. Listen now to hear Ray's fascinating take on playing chess with Justin Trudeau: https://bit.ly/4e7HCy4 You can sign up to Insights here: https://bit.ly/3YJ80dm And read old issues here: https://bit.ly/40IgumD

What is happening in Canada around euthanasia is a warning - the canary in the coalmine as it were. I sit down with Rebecca Vachon of Cardus to discuss what is happening there and what New Zealand needs to be watching out for as some look to expand access.

What is happening in Canada around euthanasia is a warning - the canary in the coalmine as it were. I sit down with Rebecca Vachon of Cardus to discuss what is happening there and what New Zealand needs to be watching out for as some look to expand access.

Do you believe that Canada's best days still lie ahead of her? At Cardus, we sure do. That's why we are committed to providing the research, the ideas, and data to give Canada the best chance of reaching her enormous potential. Sign up to our newsletters to learn more: https://bit.ly/4fpwbTQ

Welcome to the Anglosphere Project, created by Cardus. This project seeks to educate citizens about the long history of religious freedom in the United Kingdom, the United States, and #Canada. We hope to reaffirm the centrality of this fundamental freedom to our institutions and to our common life as citizens. "Because we hold it for a fundamental and undeniable truth, 'that Religion or the duty which we owe to our Creator and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only be reason and conviction, not by force or violence.' The Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man: and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate." – James Madison, A Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments, 1785. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/gGzWP4ME

Last month, Statistics Canada reported that Canada’s fertility rate had reached a new low in 2023. The rate of 1.26 births per woman puts Canada in the group of “lowest-low fertility countries,” defined as those with a fertility rate below 1.3. Some warn that chronic childlessness could lead to a contraction of the national economy and fewer people to care for an aging population. “Our social security net is grounded in the idea that children are coming up to pay for it,” said Andrea Mrozek, who researches familiy policy at the think tank Cardus. “All the benefits that we enjoy as part of a functioning democratic society, I think, are undergirded by the fact that we have a next generation coming up to pay for it.” Read more from Hadassah Alencar: https://lnkd.in/eaYCsEHB

"#Canadian doctors who provide #euthanasia struggle with the ethics of killing vulnerable patients." That's the headline from this Associated Press piece, which also cites recent Cardus research. Be warned: this is a sobering read, but it's a must-read, too. https://lnkd.in/g_wPSFPK

Cardus is shedding light on why frustration and anxiety are rising among working-class #Canadians. 🕯️ They’re increasingly over-qualified for the jobs they do – jobs that don’t require university degrees, college diplomas, or other post-secondary certificates. 📑 Renze Nauta, co-author of the Cardus report, “The Frustration of Canada’s Over-Credentialed Working Class,” joins radio host Rob Breakenridge on QR Calgary 770AM to explain what’s going on. Listen here: https://lnkd.in/gGcYkam8

This is quite something. This week's #Cardus report on the frustration of Canada's overqualified working class contained many remarkable stats and facts. Watch this quick clip to learn just some of them. We define #Canada’s working class as those in jobs that do not require a post-secondary credential. A majority of people in the working class are over-credentialed for the job they hold. Fifty-six percent of them have a post-secondary credential. Nineteen percent even have a university degree. The proportion that is over-credentialed has grown steadily over the last two decades, from 42 percent in 2006 to 56 percent in 2024. The proportion with a university degree specifically has more than doubled, from 9 percent in 2006 to 19 percent in 2024. Working-class women and working-class immigrants are more likely to be over-credentialed than their male and non-immigrant counterparts. Those in the working class earn substantially less than those in the professional and management class and the technical class (classes that over-credentialed working-class workers would belong to if they had jobs that aligned with their education level). Those holding a university degree earn less than half the wage earned by those in the professional and management class (whose jobs require a university degree). The situation, due in part to the phenomenon of “credential inflation,” has significant economic, political, and social implications. It represents an opportunity cost both to these workers and to the economy as a whole. This population may be disproportionately represented in the growing share of Canadians that is dispirited about its prospects and pessimistic about the future. To address this situation: Governments should ensure that working-class families have access to the kinds of childcare that work best for them. Governments, civil society, and universities should work together to better align post-secondary programs to labour-market needs, improve foreign-credential recognition, and promote a pluralist vision of education and labour that is characterized by greater parity of esteem for alternate career paths and greater transferability between types of education. Public funding for different forms of education may need rebalancing. Read the full report right here: https://lnkd.in/gTjdgU8r

Friday facts… The latest study from Cardus highlights something most of us intuitively know: too many people in the West have college diplomas and university degrees they didn’t need (and many of them also have a mountain of student debt to show for it). From the study: “[T]he over-credentialed represent a sizable and growing proportion of Canada’s working class.” “[T]here has been a steady rise in the over-credentialed share of Canada’s working class at least since 2006. As we will discuss further below, this has significant economic, political, and social ramifications.” “Overqualification is a phenomenon that is not limited to Canada. Researchers in the United States have found that 37 percent of graduates from four-year undergraduate programs are overqualified educationally for their jobs. In the United Kingdom, … over one third of workers with bachelor’s degrees are in jobs that do not require a university credential.” “The growth in the over-credentialed working class raises serious concerns about the state of secondary and post-secondary education in Canada.” https://lnkd.in/e5RjA2z2