Canada’s Hidden Deficit: The Social Cost of Low Literacy Skills

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NSEL_SocialCost08b.pdf

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Description

Low literacy is Canada’s hidden deficit. It is the barrier to full participation in society for about 9 million people.

This is the century when living and working demand ever higher levels of literacy and selfreliance. Fully 42% of Canadians aged 16 to 65 (48% of all adults) do not have sufficient literacy skills to handle the complex tasks required to live and work in today’s society. Even worse, the literacy of the next generation is at risk: 28% of 6 year olds entering Grade 1 have cognitive or behavioural challenges which, if they continue, will impair their ability to learn and to progress in school. And 38% of young adults aged 16 to 25 have low literacy skills. To complicate the problem, Canadians lose their literacy skills over their lifetime if they do not use them on a regular basis. In short, the vision of life long learning is unattainable for the people with low literacy skills.

There are three distinct layers of costs imposed by low literacy. First, there are the opportunity costs – the economic, social, cultural and political benefits foregone because 9 million citizens cannot read or write well enough to cope with everyday challenges. Economic growth is lower than it would otherwise be, people are less likely to vote or volunteer, and fewer people can participate in on-going learning and skill development.

Second, there are the remedial costs paid by governments and communities to mitigate the damage of low literacy. These include the costs of economic dependency; 47% of low-income Canadians have low literacy skills, as do 65% of social assistance recipients and 70% of offenders. The costs of health care and remedial education are also higher due to low literacy.

Third are the inter-generational costs. A child’s capacity to learn basic literacy skills is strongly influenced by the mother’s education and by the home environment. Literacy gaps in one generation can be passed along to the next.

Author

Judith Maxwell and Tatyana Teplova