Labor shortage | An increased risk of dropping out of school

The labor shortage affects all economic sectors. Galloping inflation, rising interest rates and the consumer price index affect all families, but especially vulnerable families.

Audrey Renaud
Executive Director of Regroupement Partage

What do these issues have in common? They put pressure on children and teenagers to enter the job market early, whether because they are courted by employers or because their purchasing power has diminished. In doing so, these young people risk putting school in the background, or worse, dropping out altogether.

This is all the more worrying when we know that children from disadvantaged families are:

• twice as likely to drop out of school; nearly one out of three Montreal students will not finish high school, and in certain boroughs hardest hit by poverty, it is nearly one out of two students;
• three to four times more likely to be late in school;
• twice as likely to experience learning problems;
• more likely than those from privileged families to skip breakfast, to be sedentary, and to have low self-esteem.

An obligation for some

For families who cannot afford to fill their children’s lunchboxes or buy them the appropriate school supplies, and not just a plastic bag with old pencil stubs — a situation frequently experienced by the Regroupement Partage which distributes school supplies and foodstuffs as part of Opération Sac à Dos — sending their children to the labor market becomes an obvious choice, or rather, an obligation.

To counter this situation and prepare our vulnerable children for success in order to remain a productive and prosperous society, for more than 20 years, the Regroupement Partage has been helping them. Each year, the organization has succeeded in increasing its assistance to support more children and families. Unfortunately, this will not be the case this year, since 2,000 fewer children will be helped, a decrease of nearly 30% compared to Operation Sac à Dos in 2021, during which nearly 7,000 children and their families were able to benefit from the support of the Regroupement.

This drop is explained by the significant increase in the cost of food and school supplies, which also affects organizations that help families affected by this same situation, as well as the drop in COVID funding allocated to Regroupement Partage.

Regroupement Partage only manages to help 5% of children living in poverty in Montreal^⁠1. Even though Quebec has a child poverty rate lower than the Canadian average (13.9%), in certain neighborhoods of Montreal this rate is three times higher and affects more than 30% of children, i.e. nearly one child in three.

Beyond the backpacks, school effects and foodstuffs that will be donated, the program aims to give children the confidence they need to hang on to school. When we know that one in three Montreal children will not finish high school and that poverty has a direct effect on the success of these young people, Opération Sac à Dos^⁠2 is even more important this year than usual.

With the labor shortage, we cannot afford to see school dropouts increase.

It is also inconceivable to socially accept that all children do not have equal opportunity in relation to their schooling.

It is crucial that the provincial parties whose campaign will start shortly take a stand and that we act collectively to reduce these inequalities, the social and economic impact of which we cannot afford.