The demographic shift towards an older population in Canada has led to concerns about the increased share of society's resources required to provide health care, social assistance, public pensions, housing, etc. for this group. Preoccupation with this problem, however, has obscured the fact that seniors actively contribute tosociety in many ways, not the least of which is the provision of substantial amounts of unpaid time contributions of various sorts. Using data from the 1992 General Social Survey on Time Use (cycle 7), this paper estimates the amount and market value (at replacement cost) of unpaid help -both informal help to others and formal help to organizations — of individuals age 55 and over. Travel time in connection with unpaid help is also analysed. We find that participation rates and average hours are higher in the informal help sector relative to the formal sector both by age and by gender. The estimates also show that the market value of these contributions is substantial, and that seniors contribute a disproportionate share of the value of unpaid help contributed by all individuals over the age of 25.

This study uses data from the 1975 Retirement Survey to analyze the factors underlying the residential mobility of the elderly in Canada. Two theoretical perpectives are considered, one emphasizing questions of community integration as a constraint on migration and the other focusing on the economic aspects of migration. We find more support for the integration perspective, at least if home ownership and married status are used as measures of integration. While economic questions can act as push factors (difficulty of upkeep or expensive taxes), income as such can both facilitate movement and be a measure of community integration.

A shift in emphasis from institutions to community poses important challenges for providers and policy makers, key among them being the challenge of providing asufficient volume of high quality community-based services to meet consumer needs. This challenge is particularly evident in community-based long-term care (LTC) due to the complexity and diversity of the field, the vulnerability of the population served, and the current wave of demand for services generated by hospital downsizing. The most recent reform of long-term care in Ontario is of particular interest in this context because, as suggested by the provincial government's maxim “highest quality, best price,” it promises cost-efficiency while maintaining or improving quality. To do this it employs a “managed competition” model in which for-profit and not-for-profit providers compete for service contracts under the auspices of local Community Care Access Centres (CCACs) run by volunteer boards. In this paper we draw on the comments of senior government officials and representatives of provider organizations, as well as published documents, to highlight issues and problems posed by the province's latest reform. We argue that, particularly under conditions of capped budgets and increasing demands, the managed competition process may result in the subordination of service quality and consumer choice to pressures for cost-containment.