SDG&A Community Pulse Survey: Is Canada in a recession?

n=119 (margin of error +/- 8.8%, CI 95%)

I’ve recently seen increasing sentiment regarding the idea that Canada is in a recession. And while I’m not an economist or an economics student (this is to say, somebody who is qualified to give an authoritative opinion on the topic), I am a social science student with training in surveying. With that in mind, I have surveyed the people of SDG&A, asking if they believe that our country is in an economic recession. Below are my findings, and how this question relates to gender, age, political party, and other factors.

To preface this article, I must make it clear that the data must be taken at the context of the sample, rather than at face value. For example, ¾ of our respondents were female, and nearly 80% of them were above 45 years of age. The figures shown here, if not otherwise disclosed, convey the beliefs of a sample that leaned towards the older female demographic.

To start off, one thing is clear: A huge chunk of SDG&A does believe that Canada is in a recession; 46% of males and 52% of females answered yes to this question, respectively. Interestingly, the male cohort was much more opinionated here than the female cohort; only one male responded “unsure” to the prompt, compared to over 15% of females giving this answer.

Less interestingly, given that younger age groups typically control less wealth, the rate of those under 45 are marginally more likely to believe that Canada is in a recession (53%) than those above 45 are (49%).
While the responses thus far have been even across demographics, the major divide here can be found in political affiliation. Nearly two thirds of those planning to vote Conservative believe that the country is in a recession, whereas just 39% and 24% of NDP and Liberal voters, respectively, hold this belief.

This is where things get interesting: even though Conservatives represent the bulk of those who believe that the country is in a recession, they also constitute the largest portion of respondents who described their family’s economics as “good” or “very good”, with a figure of 54%, compared to the other respondents’ average of 37%. This includes 17% of Conservatives describing their family’s economics as “very good”, compared to just 4% of everyone else characterizing their family’s economics the same way.

I think the most fascinating party, regarding this question, is the NDP, and its respondents’ beliefs. As previously mentioned, a relatively low percentage (39%) of NDP respondents believe that we’re in a recession, but under 30% of these respondents claim to be in a good economic position, the lowest figure of the major three parties.

While the data shows that personal economics correlate with views of Canada’s economics, Conservatives are the only cohort that saw respondents in good economic positions be more likely to respond that Canada is in a recession than that it is not (46% of well-off Conservatives answered yes, whereas 34% of everyone else who is well-off answered yes).

With all of this in mind, I can conclude that the data supports the fact that a huge chunk of SDG&A believes that Canada is in a recession. But more interestingly, these people are also largely well-off, with less than 20% of respondents claiming to be in bad economic positions, and the plurality claiming that their economics are just neutral.

Gender and age do not really affect how our area views Canadian economics, but party and personal economics do; the richer you are, the less likely you are to believe that there’s a recession. And the more Conservative you are, the more likely you are to believe that there’s a recession. Finally, the richer you are, the more likely you are to be a Conservative…

Wait, that doesn’t add up…

Bonus Data: Voting Intentions for next Federal Election.

As I started the article off by saying, the sample surveyed is not exactly indicative of the demographics of SDG&A.Given that women are overrepresented, it can also be assumed that Conservatives, who nationally lean male, were underrepresented in this poll.

40% of respondents claimed they plan on voting Conservative in the next election. This feels low. When looking at how respondents answered that they voted in 2021, the answer is apparent; Conservatives clearly are underrepresented. Just 34% of respondents said they voted Conservative last election, even though 56% of SDG&A did.

With this in mind, here is the simple method I’ve used for the adjusted poll presented below: using the margins in the responses to the questions ‘who did you vote for’, and ‘who will you vote for’, I’ve taken the percentage increases/decreases and applied them to the real 2021 election values.

The figures regarding vote intention display a representation of adjusted polling numbers, not the raw numbers that the data provided; the question about how people voted in 2021 worked as a control variable.