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Slightly more than half of all employees in Canada enjoyed employer-sponsored medical, dental or life/disability insurance coverage in 1999, according to a study available today in the August online edition of Perspectives on labour and income.

The study, which used data from the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics, showed that about 57% of employees were covered by an extended medical plan, 53% by a dental plan, and about 53% by a life or disability insurance plan. The coverage rate for employer-sponsored pension plans was slightly lower, about 43%.

Coverage in the three insurance plans differed considerably by union status. Workers in unionized jobs were almost twice as likely as their non-unionized counterparts to be covered in each of the three plans. For example, 84% of unionized employees reported having an extended medical plan, compared with only 45% of non-unionized employees.

The gap was even wider in terms of pension plan coverage, where 80% of unionized employees had such a plan, compared with only 27% of non-unionized employees.

Rates and differentials in 1999 were generally unchanged from 1995. A majority of unionized employees enjoyed coverage under all three insurance plans; a majority of non-unionized workers had no coverage under any plan.

For unionized workers, the chances of being covered were fairly close in both the public and private sectors. For the non-unionized, the chances were much higher in the public sector. The overall union advantage resulted primarily from low coverage in small- and medium-sized firms - those with fewer than 100 employees - in the private sector.

In both Canada and the United States, unionized workers enjoyed higher coverage rates for these non-wage fringe benefits than their non-unionized counterparts. However, the union advantage tended to be less in the United States.