Our Research

Meet Ontario’s new old sex ed, same as Ontario’s old new sex ed, writes Cardus Family Director Andrea Mrozek. Meanwhile, Mrozek notes, the proven, enduring good of marriage gets crickets.

This paper is a first effort to understand the place of school associations in the Canadian independent school landscape. 

These associations strengthen the voice of the independent school sector, increase capacity, and promote values and standards among the diverse forms of quality non-government K-12 education. Within this paper are mapped the functions of 56 provincial, national, and international education associations from across Canada.

Six years ago the province of Saskatchewan created an additional funded independent school category: Qualified Independent Schools. This paper examines changes in enrollment and independent school distribution between 2011/2012 and 2017/2018—the six-year period following the introduction of Qualified Independent Schools in Saskatchewan. 

This innovation provides the unique opportunity to observe how the independent school sector responds to substantive policy change. 

The evidence is in: Restricted contract bidding based on union affiliation is not in the public interest. Skimming off the Top uses industry benchmarks and best practices to evaluate procurement policy for public infrastructure construction. This paper explores the cost implications, but also goes beyond those numbers to consider the effects that the diversion from best practices can have on the construction industry, workers, and the public good.

In a decision delivered in April 2018, a Newfoundland court recognized three legal parents (two fathers and one mother), based on the throuple’s sexual relationship 

A new report finds that marriage is declining as cohabitation rates double among middle-aged Canadians.

This paper is one of two providing an on-the-ground look at the end-of-life care landscape in two of Ontario's largest cities. To read more about encouraging signs of progress and frustrating roadblocks to improvement, read both this case study and the study in Hamilton.

This paper is one of two providing an on-the-ground look at the end-of-life care landscape in two of Ontario's largest cities. To read more about encouraging signs of progress and frustrating roadblocks to improvement, read both this case study and the study in Ottawa.

While national statistics have their place, they can be frustrating since they often gloss over regional particularities. Cardus has developed two case studies (in Hamilton and Ottawa) to attempt to better survey the landscape of end-of-life care in Canada from "ground zero."

Looking at several large social surveys in the U.S., this paper finds that religious school isn’t a bulwark against extended adolescence. However, American religious school grads do follow some different patterns going into adulthood when compared to their public school counterparts.

Ontario’s new payday lending laws provide municipalities with both opportunities and responsibilities. This paper presents guidelines for addressing the challenges that accompany payday lending in cities.

What is the relationship between marital status and social-assistance participation? Canadian analysis on how social-assistance policies may discourage marriage provides mixed results. However it shows that regional variations such as labour market conditions and wage growth are important considerations when exploring social-assistance participation and marital decision-making.

This provincial and territorial breakdown of the 2016 family census data shows that kids in Canada’s wealthiest provinces are the most likely to be growing up in families with two married parents.

This report examines the correlation between religious school attendance, pro-social attitudes, and civic involvement. Are religious school graduates more likely to vote, attend a community meeting, or engage in some other action that contributes to the common good? Author David Sikkink at the University of Notre Dame examines these issues through an analysis of a major American longitudinal data set.

While the issue of restrictive tendering is the result of provincial law made in Toronto for the whole province, it is local communities, and the citizens, workers, and companies living and working there, that are affected. This paper focuses on data from one particular municipality, the Region of Waterloo, which, because of its relatively recent certification as a construction employer, did not have data that fit within the time frame studied by our previous papers.

This national and historic breakdown of the 2016 family census data examines how, for the first time since 1981, Census 2016 omitted the distinction between married and cohabiting parents with regards to children’s living arrangements. Cardus Family made a special request for this data and offers several reasons why we ought to return to distinguishing between marriage and cohabitation with every census release.

Using Cardus Education Survey data, University of Notre Dame analysts say that attending a Protestant Evangelical school has a measurable effect on graduates that is distinct from the influence of family, socio-economic background, or church life.

Ontario’s new payday lending rules kicked in this year. They’re supposed to strengthen the hand of consumers who borrow less than $1500 for terms of less than 60 days. But will the rules succeed?

Cardus graded the new regulations according to research drawn from our report “Banking on the Margins: Finding Ways to Build an Enabling Small-Dollar Credit Market”. Here are the results:

What is the impact of schooling experiences on the formation, quality, and stability of marriages and other romantic relationships of young adults? This report brings evidence to bear on the hypothesis that schools contribute to family formation and flourishing.

In the fall of 2017 Cardus Education hosted four by-invitation education policy round tables across Canada.

The empirical results of this paper, which compiles bidding data from a variety of Ontario municipalities over time, suggest that restricting tendering to a select group of firms on the basis of their workers’ affiliations will lead to higher costs for municipalities than if they tendered their projects to all qualified bidders, with the strong possibility that municipalities will pay a substantial magnitude more.

Libby Simon, MSW, discusses the importance of avoiding peer orientation for kids in daycare.

Much academic research and popular media coverage neglects the vital role of religion and religious communities in North American cities. This roundtable report can help stimulate a conversation on how to begin to bridge that gap in your community or sphere of influence. Focusing on the future of both cities and religion, it is the third report in a three-report series on the social and cultural good of religion in the city. Future collaboration in cities requires intentional focus and investment. How will this investment become more difficult in the coming years? How will it get easier? What is necessary for religious faith and spirituality to be seen as vital contributors to the common good that we depend on?

Read the other reports:

Program Director Brian Dijkema responds to a recent article by John Rapley and asks: Why can't economics be more like religion?