This study assesses whether workplace pensions help individuals overcome knowledge barriers to saving for retirement. Using administrative data from Canada and exploiting unique features of the pension system, I find compelling evidence that each $1 contributed to workplace pensions partially crowds out other retirement saving by approximately $0.50—among interior savers—in a regression kink design, centering on unionized workers for methodological reasons. Further analysis indicates that active versus passive decisions are influenced by education, exploiting compulsory schooling reforms for identification. I conclude by showing that pension and education reform are both viable mechanisms for boosting saving from a life cycle perspective.

We investigate how reforms of Canada’s child allowances affected household poverty and maternal employment—the 2015 increase and expansion of the Universal Child Care Benefit and the 2016 introduction of a new Canada Child Benefit (CCB). We document that both reforms reduced child poverty, although the CCB had greater effect. By 2018, we estimate that the CCB reduced poverty by 11% in families headed by a single mother and by nearly 17% in two-parent families. We find no evidence, on either the extensive or the intensive margin, of a negative labor supply response to either of the program reforms.