An upcoming holiday closure, researcher kudos, and a new data set profile.
This month we will have the following changes to our usual operating hours:
Congratulations to Keerat Purewal, who recently defended her MSc thesis, titled “Exploring the Returns of Language and Literacy: Evidence from Canadian Adults”, under the supervision of Dr. Victor Kuperman. Keerat will be graduating from the MSc in Cognitive Science of Language Program in the Department of Linguistics and Languages. Her research examined the economic and social returns of language and literacy skills in Canada using datasets that are available through the RDC.
Her first study examined the post-graduation earnings of Canadian college graduates as a function of first language, immigration status, and college language of instruction. This study used data from the Postsecondary Student Information System (PSIS) in conjunction with the T1 Family File (T1FF). Her second study examined the broader social returns of literacy proficiency among Canadian adults, including health, life satisfaction, political efficacy, social trust, and volunteering, using public-use data from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC).
Together, the two studies highlight the importance of language and literacy across multiple areas of Canadian life and demonstrate that their benefits apply across the domains of wellbeing and productivity.
In September, Keerat will be starting her Master of Clinical Science in Speech-Language Pathology at Western University. She looks forward to bringing her research perspective into clinical practice and deepening her understanding of how communication shapes everyday life.
Survey of Safety in Public and Private Spaces (SSPPS)
The Survey of Safety in Public and Private Spaces (SSPPS) collects information on personal experiences with unwanted behaviours and violence at home, in the workplace, at school, in public spaces and online.
This cycle of the SSPPS combines questions from three previous Statistics Canada surveys: the Survey of Safety in Public and Private Spaces (SSPPS) 2018, the Survey of Sexual Misconduct at work (SSMW) 2020, and the Survey on Individual Safety in the Postsecondary Student Population (SISPSP) 2019.
Data collected through this survey will allow researchers, policymakers, victim service providers and other organizations to measure the effectiveness of existing support services, improve these services, and develop new programs and strategies to prevent and address victimization. Data from previous cycles of this survey have helped to produce the most comprehensive portrait of experiences of gender-based violence in Canada to date.
For more information about this data set, visit https://www23.statcan.gc.ca/imdb/p2SV.pl?Function=getSurvey&SDDS=5256
If you would like more information on how to submit a proposal for access to this data see https://www.statcan.gc.ca/eng/microdata/data-centres/access.
For more information about the RDC program please contact your local RDC analyst.
📃 For a list of all the most recent data releases, see https://crdcn.ca/publications-data/data/.
RDC McMaster News