Jun. 10, 2009 Get Medbroadcast Health News via RSS Feed
Provided by: The Canadian Press
Written by: Anne-Marie Tobin, THE CANADIAN PRESS
TORONTO - A new index is being created to measure the well-being of Canadians, which will go beyond what we learn about ourselves from economic indicators like the GDP.
The new Canadian Index of Wellbeing will measure eight areas of life, including health, education, state of the arts and standard of living, says Roy Romanow, chair of the non-partisan and independent institute that will produce the index.
In addition, it will tally figures on participation in the democratic process, quality of environment, the way Canadians use their time and the vitality of communities - including volunteer activities.
Romanow, a former premier of Saskatchewan and commissioner on the future of health care in Canada, described the project as "absolutely necessary."
"Right now in Canada, the one measuring stick, if I can use that phrase, that we have - that dominates everything - is the GDP, gross domestic product, sometimes called the gross national product," he said in an interview prior to the launch Wednesday.
It has become a surrogate for telling Canadians whether they're better or worse off, Romanow said, but in reality all it does is measure goods and services produced. But not all things that are produced are good for our lives, communities or health, he added.
"We'd like to have a complementary mechanism of measuring those things which the GDP does not, namely the quality of life."
The data being crunched will come from Statistics Canada, the CIBC employment quality index and a variety of other sources, he said.
On Wednesday, the newly launched Institute of Wellbeing, which is affiliated with the University of Waterloo, issued its first report dealing with three of the eight areas of life that will eventually be covered by the index.
Andrew Sharpe, executive director of the Centre for the Study of Living Standards in Ottawa, is the co-author of the living standards component, which looked at data from 1981 to 2008.
"Average incomes did fairly well in Canada, but what happened was much of the gains went to the top 25 per cent of the households, so median incomes - that's the middle family - actually only increased by around two per cent, over that whole period," he said. "That's very small."
The report said average real net worth in 2007 was up 73.3 per cent on a per capita basis and 51.7 per cent on a household basis from 1981.
As well, Sharpe said there's been a historic decline in the poverty rate - it was 9.2 per cent in 2007, down from 16 per cent around 1996. There were marked declines in child poverty and poverty among seniors, he noted.
"But the problem is, we're going to lose that. All this progress we've made through public policy and economic growth, we're going to unwind much of that with the next years to come because of this recession," he said.
The health portion of the report said Canadians' life expectancy rates are among the best in the world - a Canadian born in 2005 could expect to live to 80.4 years, up from 74.9 years in 1979.
But the health picture isn't all rosy, according to Romanow.
"If you plumb further down into that figure, you'll see some very disturbing aspects about life expectancies - for example, in the three territories - or life expectancies with aboriginal and native organizations," he said.
A child born in Nunavut in 2004 could expect to live only 70.4 years, the report said.
"These are circumstances where their health outcomes are worse, I suspect, because their incomes are also worse," Romanow surmised.
In terms of community vitality, the report said 61 per cent of Canadians were members of non-profit, voluntary organizations in 2003 compared with 51 per cent in the late 1990s.
And the number of people reporting six or more close friends dropped from 40 per cent to 30 per cent between 1996 and 2003.
Romanow said three more components that will comprise the index will be reported in the fall, and the other two will likely come in 2010.
As the eight domains are reported, researchers will concurrently be working at developing what they hope will be a single indicator, similar to the GDP, he said.
The composite figure "will be able to tell us as Canadians ... where improvements need to be made or where changes in policies should be implemented, or whether we just simply need a new initiative."
The idea originated about a decade ago when the Atkinson Charitable Foundation in Toronto was concerned about identifying scientific data that could tell us as a society whether Canadians are doing better or worse, Romanow said.
He came on board after filing his health-care report in 2002.
The advisory board is identified as the Institute of Wellbeing, and it's guided by experts who have been working on data for years, Romanow said.
There is a "virtual relationship" with the University of Waterloo, to give it an academic home.
"It's a citizens' group, not owned by any government. We're non-partisan - all we want to do is get the facts out there so that Canadians know and governments and communities respond accordingly."
Why Skilled Immigrants Are Leaving the U.S.
Source: Business Week
New research shows that highly skilled workers are returning home for brighter career prospects and a better quality of life
By Vivek Wadhwa
As the debate over H-1B workers and skilled immigrants intensifies, we are losing sight of one important fact: The U.S. is no longer the only land of opportunity. If we don't want the immigrants who have fueled our innovation and economic growth, they now have options elsewhere. Immigrants are returning home in greater numbers. And new research shows they are returning to enjoy a better quality of life, better career prospects, and the comfort of being close to family and friends.
Earlier research by my team suggested that a crisis was brewing because of a burgeoning immigration backlog. At the end of 2006, more than 1 million skilled professionals (engineers, scientists, doctors, researchers) and their families were in line for a yearly allotment of only 120,000 permanent resident visas. The wait time for some people ran longer than a decade. In the meantime, these workers were trapped in "immigration limbo." If they changed jobs or even took a promotion, they risked being pushed to the back of the permanent residency queue. We predicted that skilled foreign workers would increasingly get fed up and return to countries like India and China where the economies were booming.
Why should we care? Because immigrants are critical to the country's long-term economic health. Despite the fact that they constitute only 12% of the U.S. population, immigrants have started 52% of Silicon Valley's technology companies and contributed to more than 25% of our global patents. They make up 24% of the U.S. science and engineering workforce holding bachelor's degrees and 47% of science and engineering workers who have PhDs. Immigrants have co-founded firms such as Google (GOOG), Intel (INTC), eBay (EBAY), and Yahoo! (YHOO).
Who Are They? Young and Well-Educated
We tried to find hard data on how many immigrants had returned to India and China. No government authority seems to track these numbers. But human resources directors in India and China told us that what was a trickle of returnees a decade ago had become a flood. Job applications from the U.S. had increased tenfold over the last few years, they said. To get an understanding of how the returnees had fared and why they left the U.S., my team at Duke, along with AnnaLee Saxenian of the University of California at Berkeley and Richard Freeman of Harvard University, conducted a survey. Through professional networking site LinkedIn, we tracked down 1,203 Indian and Chinese immigrants who had worked or received education in the U.S. and had returned to their home countries. This research was funded by the Kauffman Foundation.
Our new paper, "America's Loss Is the World's Gain," finds that the vast majority of these returnees were relatively young. The average age was 30 for Indian returnees, and 33 for Chinese. They were highly educated, with degrees in management, technology, or science. Fifty-one percent of the Chinese held master's degrees and 41% had PhDs. Sixty-six percent of the Indians held a master's and 12.1% had PhDs. They were at very top of the educational distribution for these highly educated immigrant groups—precisely the kind of people who make the greatest contribution to the U.S. economy and to business and job growth.
Nearly a third of the Chinese returnees and a fifth of the Indians came to the U.S. on student visas. A fifth of the Chinese and nearly half of the Indians entered on temporary work visas (such as the H-1B). The strongest factor that brought them to the U.S. was professional and educational development opportunities.
What They Miss: Family and Friends
They found life in the U.S. had many drawbacks. Returnees cited language barriers, missing their family and friends at home, difficulty with cultural assimilation, and care of parents and children as key issues. About a third of the Indians and a fifth of the Chinese said that visas were a strong factor in their decision to return home, but others left for opportunity and to be close to family and friends. And it wasn't just new immigrants who were returning. In fact, 30% of respondents held permanent resident status or were U.S. citizens.
Eighty-seven percent of Chinese and 79% of Indians said a strong factor in their original decision to return home was the growing demand for their skills in their home countries. Their instincts generally proved right. Significant numbers moved up the organization chart. Among Indians the percentage of respondents holding senior management positions increased from 10% in the U.S. to 44% in India, and among Chinese it increased from 9% in the U.S. to 36% in China. Eighty-seven percent of Chinese and 62% of Indians said they had better opportunities for longer-term professional growth in their home countries than in the U.S. Additionally, nearly half were considering launching businesses and said entrepreneurial opportunities were better in their home countries than in the U.S.
Friends and family played an equally strong role for 88% of Indians and 77% of Chinese. Care for aging parents was considered by 89% of Indians and 79% of Chinese to be much better in their home countries. Nearly 80% of Indians and 67% of Chinese said family values were better in their home countries.
More Options Back Home
Immigrants who have arrived at America's shores have always felt lonely and homesick. They had to make big personal sacrifices to provide their children with better opportunities than they had. But they never have had the option to return home. Now they do, and they are leaving.
It isn't all rosy back home. Indians complained of traffic and congestion, lack of infrastructure, excessive bureaucracy, and pollution. Chinese complained of pollution, reverse culture shock, inferior education for children, frustration with government bureaucracy, and the quality of health care. Returnees said they were generally making less money in absolute terms, but they also said they enjoyed a higher quality of life.
We may not need all these workers in the U.S. during the deepening recession. But we will need them to help us recover from it. Right now, they are taking their skills and ideas back to their home countries and are unlikely to return, barring an extraordinary recruitment effort and major changes to immigration policy. That hardly seems likely given the current political climate. The policy focus now seems to be on doing whatever it takes to retain existing American jobs—even if it comes at the cost of building a workforce for the future of America.
New research shows that highly skilled workers are returning home for brighter career prospects and a better quality of life
By Vivek Wadhwa
As the debate over H-1B workers and skilled immigrants intensifies, we are losing sight of one important fact: The U.S. is no longer the only land of opportunity. If we don't want the immigrants who have fueled our innovation and economic growth, they now have options elsewhere. Immigrants are returning home in greater numbers. And new research shows they are returning to enjoy a better quality of life, better career prospects, and the comfort of being close to family and friends.
Earlier research by my team suggested that a crisis was brewing because of a burgeoning immigration backlog. At the end of 2006, more than 1 million skilled professionals (engineers, scientists, doctors, researchers) and their families were in line for a yearly allotment of only 120,000 permanent resident visas. The wait time for some people ran longer than a decade. In the meantime, these workers were trapped in "immigration limbo." If they changed jobs or even took a promotion, they risked being pushed to the back of the permanent residency queue. We predicted that skilled foreign workers would increasingly get fed up and return to countries like India and China where the economies were booming.
Why should we care? Because immigrants are critical to the country's long-term economic health. Despite the fact that they constitute only 12% of the U.S. population, immigrants have started 52% of Silicon Valley's technology companies and contributed to more than 25% of our global patents. They make up 24% of the U.S. science and engineering workforce holding bachelor's degrees and 47% of science and engineering workers who have PhDs. Immigrants have co-founded firms such as Google (GOOG), Intel (INTC), eBay (EBAY), and Yahoo! (YHOO).
Who Are They? Young and Well-Educated
We tried to find hard data on how many immigrants had returned to India and China. No government authority seems to track these numbers. But human resources directors in India and China told us that what was a trickle of returnees a decade ago had become a flood. Job applications from the U.S. had increased tenfold over the last few years, they said. To get an understanding of how the returnees had fared and why they left the U.S., my team at Duke, along with AnnaLee Saxenian of the University of California at Berkeley and Richard Freeman of Harvard University, conducted a survey. Through professional networking site LinkedIn, we tracked down 1,203 Indian and Chinese immigrants who had worked or received education in the U.S. and had returned to their home countries. This research was funded by the Kauffman Foundation.
Our new paper, "America's Loss Is the World's Gain," finds that the vast majority of these returnees were relatively young. The average age was 30 for Indian returnees, and 33 for Chinese. They were highly educated, with degrees in management, technology, or science. Fifty-one percent of the Chinese held master's degrees and 41% had PhDs. Sixty-six percent of the Indians held a master's and 12.1% had PhDs. They were at very top of the educational distribution for these highly educated immigrant groups—precisely the kind of people who make the greatest contribution to the U.S. economy and to business and job growth.
Nearly a third of the Chinese returnees and a fifth of the Indians came to the U.S. on student visas. A fifth of the Chinese and nearly half of the Indians entered on temporary work visas (such as the H-1B). The strongest factor that brought them to the U.S. was professional and educational development opportunities.
What They Miss: Family and Friends
They found life in the U.S. had many drawbacks. Returnees cited language barriers, missing their family and friends at home, difficulty with cultural assimilation, and care of parents and children as key issues. About a third of the Indians and a fifth of the Chinese said that visas were a strong factor in their decision to return home, but others left for opportunity and to be close to family and friends. And it wasn't just new immigrants who were returning. In fact, 30% of respondents held permanent resident status or were U.S. citizens.
Eighty-seven percent of Chinese and 79% of Indians said a strong factor in their original decision to return home was the growing demand for their skills in their home countries. Their instincts generally proved right. Significant numbers moved up the organization chart. Among Indians the percentage of respondents holding senior management positions increased from 10% in the U.S. to 44% in India, and among Chinese it increased from 9% in the U.S. to 36% in China. Eighty-seven percent of Chinese and 62% of Indians said they had better opportunities for longer-term professional growth in their home countries than in the U.S. Additionally, nearly half were considering launching businesses and said entrepreneurial opportunities were better in their home countries than in the U.S.
Friends and family played an equally strong role for 88% of Indians and 77% of Chinese. Care for aging parents was considered by 89% of Indians and 79% of Chinese to be much better in their home countries. Nearly 80% of Indians and 67% of Chinese said family values were better in their home countries.
More Options Back Home
Immigrants who have arrived at America's shores have always felt lonely and homesick. They had to make big personal sacrifices to provide their children with better opportunities than they had. But they never have had the option to return home. Now they do, and they are leaving.
It isn't all rosy back home. Indians complained of traffic and congestion, lack of infrastructure, excessive bureaucracy, and pollution. Chinese complained of pollution, reverse culture shock, inferior education for children, frustration with government bureaucracy, and the quality of health care. Returnees said they were generally making less money in absolute terms, but they also said they enjoyed a higher quality of life.
We may not need all these workers in the U.S. during the deepening recession. But we will need them to help us recover from it. Right now, they are taking their skills and ideas back to their home countries and are unlikely to return, barring an extraordinary recruitment effort and major changes to immigration policy. That hardly seems likely given the current political climate. The policy focus now seems to be on doing whatever it takes to retain existing American jobs—even if it comes at the cost of building a workforce for the future of America.
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