Overview

  1. In 2000, Canadians will mark the 30th anniversary of the groundbreaking Report of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women and the 15th anniversary of the coming into force of s. 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which formally entrenched women’s equality within the Canadian Constitution.

  2. Over the 30-year period since the Royal Commission on the Status of Women, Canada has made significant progress in the advancement of the status of women. The efforts of individuals, governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have enabled Canada to reap many social and economic rewards, which benefit all Canadians. Women and women’s organizations, in particular, have been instrumental in this progress.

  3. Canadian legislation, policies and programs are subject to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Sections 15 and 28 of the Charter provide constitutional protection for gender equality. Section 15 prohibits discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age, or mental or physical disability, or analogous groups, which has been interpreted to include sexual orientation. Section 28 provides: “Notwithstanding anything in this Charter, the rights and freedoms referred to it are guaranteed equally to male and female persons.” The Charter generally governs the relationships between governments (federal, provincial and municipal) and individuals rather than between individuals. Federal and provincial human rights codes extend similar prohibitions against discrimination to the private sector.

  4. Canada is committed to advancing gender equality and women’s human rights through our domestic and international activities. Canada’s promotion of gender equality is based on a belief that equal rights for women are an essential component of progress on human rights and democratic development, and sustainable development will only be achieved if women are able to participate as equal decision makers in, and beneficiaries of, that development.

  5. Canada, along with all United Nations member states, was called upon to formulate a national plan to advance the situation of women, both within its own borders and globally. The Federal Plan for Gender Equality, presented in 1995 at the Fourth United Nations World Conference on Women in Beijing, is Canada’s response to that request. The Federal Plan is both a statement of commitments and a framework for the future, representing a collaborative initiative of 24 federal departments and agencies, led by Status of Women Canada.

  6. The Federal Plan has eight objectives:
  1. Many of the specific measures taken by Canada toward the fulfilment of these objectives are discussed in more detail in Part II of this report. Highlights include the following:
  1. There continues to be a distinct gender division of labour in Canada. For much of this century, men’s work was concentrated in the paid market economy, while women’s work consisted largely of the unpaid activities related to managing the household and caring for children and family members.

  2. Since the 1950s, female participation in the paid labour force has more than doubled. Women now comprise close to half (46 percent) of all paid workers in Canada. Men’s labour force participation, on the other hand, has experienced a small but steady decline, mostly due to earlier retirement. Nonetheless, men are still somewhat more likely than women to be paid labour force participants, and spend more total time working for pay.

  3. In the past, relatively few women with children worked for pay. In the 1960s, labour force participation was very low for women with children under age 6, and, over her lifetime, a woman could expect to give birth to an average of four children. Today, the fertility rate has fallen below the replacement rate of two children per woman, and women with children account for much of the increase in female labour force participation. More than six out of ten women whose youngest child is of preschool age are employed, and most are working for pay on a full-time basis.

  4. With respect to paid work, although considerable advancements have been made in increasing the representation of women in all types of occupations, women still tend to be concentrated in jobs that parallel the kinds of unpaid domestic and caring work they have historically done in the home. In the late 1990s close to 68.5 percent of employed women work in teaching, nursing, clerical, sales and service jobs. Women are also much more likely than men to have non-standard employment (jobs where the employee does not work full time, full year for a single employer). This is especially evident with respect to part-time work (less than 30 hours of paid work per week), with women accounting for 70 percent of the part-time work force. Female-dominated and non-standard jobs are typically low paying, and have fewer benefits, such as pension or drug plans.

  5. Virtually all adults in Canada do unpaid work; however, some kinds of unpaid work appear to be more equally shared between men and women than others. For instance, women perform more than 70 percent of meal preparation, cleaning, clothing care, child care and other dependent care. Together, these tasks accounted for more than half of all time spent on unpaid work in 1998. The type of unpaid work largely done by men includes repairs and maintenance. Tasks that are more equally shared between men and women include household management and shopping, transportation and travel. Men are responsible for slightly less than half the time spent on these types of unpaid work.

  6. In addition to gender inequalities, experiences of paid and unpaid work also differ among women. For example, several groups of women — including women in a visible minority group, Aboriginal women and women with disabilities — are less likely to participate in paid work than other women in Canada, and when they do they experience higher rates of unemployment. Women with preschool children devote more time to unpaid work than women without children, or those whose children are older. Older women are the most likely to provide unpaid care to elderly relatives.

  7. Women in Canada spend about the same amount of time doing work of economic value (paid and unpaid) as men. In 1998, the average total workload was 7.8 hours for both. However, the allocation of time was different, as the amount of time spent at paid work is not offset by a decline in the time spent on unpaid work. For example, women with children who were employed full time spent an average of 10 hours per day working, compared to eight hours per day for women who were not employed who had children. As women’s involvement in the paid work force increases, responsibility for housework is more likely to be shared with their partner, although men’s contributions do not increase enough to approach parity.

  8. Because of the ongoing gender division of labour, it is still women who limit their paid work to care for dependents and other family members. Women are responsible for more than 70 percent of all time spent on helping and caring for children and other family members. Women also spend, on average, more than twice the time that men do on primary child care. The gender imbalance in households where both spouses have full-time employment is substantial. Furthermore, women with children tend to alter their paid work arrangements to meet demands of unpaid work, while the age or presence of children has little similar impact on men’s paid or unpaid work patterns. The struggle to balance paid and unpaid work responsibilities leads to high levels of time stress, especially among employed women with young children. This stress, in turn, takes a toll on women’s health. The trend of de-institutionalization in Canada’s health care system has placed increased burdens on women as caregivers in the home.

  9. In the 1996 Census questions on unpaid work, one in six people (or approximately 17 percent of the population 15 and over) responded that they provided some care to seniors. This was defined to include such activities as providing personal care to a senior family member, visiting seniors, talking with them on the telephone and helping them with shopping, banking or with taking medication. More women than men (19 percent versus 14 percent) reported providing such care. The time spent caring for seniors depended largely on whether an individual had elderly parents or other elderly relatives. The Census data showed that the proportion reporting hours of care to seniors increased as respondents approached middle age, then tapered off. Those aged 45 to 54 had the highest proportion (23 percent) of individuals providing unpaid care to seniors.

  10. Although women do more total work than men do, their incomes are lower. Comparing average total income before taxes, women in Canada receive 38 percent less income than men (as of 1997). This gap is related to a number of factors, such as the concentration of women in part-time and non-standard employment, family responsibilities, their over- representation among lone parents and seniors who have few or no earnings, and their under-representation among those with higher education. However, the income gap has closed steadily since 1986, when the figure was 51 percent. Canada’s progressive tax system and the redistributive effects of government transfer payments also help to improve the gender balance in income. After taxes, women receive 33 percent less income than men.

  11. More women than men live in poverty. Because economic autonomy and well-being are linked to access to income from the paid labour force, women are more likely than men to live with low incomes. Certain groups of women are particularly at risk; almost 49 percent of all elderly women living alone and 56 percent of female lone parents live in poverty. This has direct implications for the well-being of children because those living with lone mothers accounted for 40 percent of all children living in poverty in 1997. Although the rate of low income remains high among the elderly, the situation has improved since the early 1980s when nearly 70 percent of elderly women living alone had low incomes.

  12. Fifty-four percent of all people below the Statistics Canada low-income cutoff (LICO) in 1997 were women; 19 percent of the female population, and 24 percent of all women 65 or older, lived below the Statistics Canada LICO that year.

  13. In 1995, 37 percent of visible minority women and 43 percent of Aboriginal women not resident on a reserve, or in the territories, lived in a low-income situation. In 1997, the same was true of 56 percent of female lone parents.

  14. Many social policy programs allocate benefits using the family as the basic unit of administration. However, there have been significant changes to the organization of family life in Canada over the last few decades. This poses a challenge to policy makers for the development of programs that recognize the universal nature of unpaid work, encourage economic autonomy and gender equality, and are compatible with broad national and social objectives.

  15. Family forms are becoming more diverse in Canada, and a growing percentage of people live alone. Many factors have contributed to the diversity of family arrangements. For example, the marriage rate has fallen and marriage is being delayed. At the same time, the divorce rate has risen dramatically since the late 1960s, largely as a result of legislation in 1968 easing divorce restrictions. Trends in divorce, as well as an increase in births outside of a conjugal relationship, have also contributed to the growth in the number of lone-parent families. In 1996, families headed by one parent (over 80 percent of whom are women) account for nearly one in six families in Canada, up from one in ten in 1981.

  16. The changing attitude of Canadians toward marital unions is also reflected in the increased popularity of common-law relationships. Over the last 15 years, the share of common-law families doubled from 6 percent to 12 percent. And there is increasing recognition of same-sex relationships. Successful challenges under the equality provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms have led to an increasing acknowledgment of same-sex couple families. This has led Canadian governments and employers to review policies regarding family status and eligibility for qualifying for social and employee benefits.

  17. As a result of women’s increased participation in paid work, dual-earner families have become the norm in Canada. Both partners work for pay in 61 percent of two-partner families. In half of dual-earner families, both partners work full time. The percentage of dual-earner families has been relatively stable in the 1990s, following two decades of growth. However, the proportion of families where neither partner had earnings has increased gradually, reflecting the aging of the population and the trend toward earlier retirement from paid work. For an increasing number of families, women have become the sole earners. This has contributed to the increasing income gap between dual-earner and single-earner families because women tend to earn less than men in the paid labour force.

  18. 30. The majority of Canadian children live in two-parent families where both parents are employed in the labour force. In 1996, there were 4.8 million children under the age of 15 living in two-parent families. Both parents were working in the case of 60 percent of these children, up from 43 percent in 1981 and 58 percent in 1991.

  19. The 1996 Census showed that trends for preschool children under the age of 6 were similar to those for all children under the age of 15. The proportion of preschoolers whose parents were both working for pay has also increased during the last 15 years. In 1996, both parents were working in the case of 56 percent of these preschool children, compared with 38 percent in 1981 and 52 percent in 1991. The proportion of preschool children living in a female lone-parent family in which the mother was working for pay has declined slightly during the last 15 years. In 1996, the single mother was employed in the case of 38 percent of these children, compared with 41 percent in 1981.

  20. The 1996 Census also showed that only 35 percent of female lone parents had completed a post-secondary certificate or degree, compared to about 53 percent of women with partners.

  21. At the same time, the number of two-parent families with one partner staying at home to manage the household and care for the children has decreased dramatically since 1976. As a result, less than one in five families with children under the age of 16 had a stay-at-home parent in 1997, compared with half of families in 1976. The proportion of families where fathers are at home to care for children has remained close to one percent.

  22. Education is key to women’s equality. It has a profound impact on women’s access to employment and on women’s economic independence. The changing nature of employment in Canada and elsewhere requires Canadians to be prepared to make several career changes during their adult lives. As well, the emergence of the knowledge-based economy and society in Canada has made women’s access to education and training even more imperative as technical and scientific fields become the key elements for growth. However, women receive less employer-sponsored training. Women’s and men’s job-related training participation rates are similar, but women receive fewer hours of training.

  23. In general, access to higher education has increased. For example, in 1996, 12 percent of women aged 15 and over, and 14 percent of men, were university graduates, as compared to 1971 when 3 percent of women and 7 percent of men had a university degree. The gap continues to close, as women currently make up a slight majority of students in Canadian universities. As of 1998, more women graduated from post-secondary institutions than men did.

  24. In 1997-98, women accounted for about 29 percent of university students in mathematics and sciences and for 22 percent of students in engineering and applied sciences — key growth areas in the knowledge-based economy and society. Women are still under- represented in enrolment in doctoral programs and on college and university faculties. Rates of higher educational attainment by Aboriginal women continue to lag behind those of non-Aboriginal women.

  25. Although women in Canada have a longer life expectancy than men (by six years), isolation, illness or disability may mark those additional years. Cardiovascular disease is the major cause of death among women in Canada. And, while breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer among women, lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death for women.

  26. In Canada, women have made advances in numbers and influence in political, economic and social decision making over the last decade. At the same time, they continue to be under-represented in decision-making positions. For example, after the federal election in 1997, Canada’s House of Commons had the largest number of women representatives ever elected in Canadian history, with 20 percent of its members being women. By comparison, in provincial legislatures 18.4 percent of members are women.

  27. The Statistics Canada 1993 Violence Against Women Survey showed that 51 percent of all Canadian women had experienced at least one incident of physical or sexual violence since age 16. Twenty-nine percent of women who had ever been married or lived in common-law relationships had been physically or sexually assaulted by their partner at some point during the relationship. Children witnessed violence against their mothers in four out of ten marriages where violence was reported.

  28. The rates of both sexual and non-sexual assaults against women reported to police have increased since the passage of criminal law reforms in 1983. When measured 10 years later, sexual assault reports had increased by 152 percent and physical assaults by 62 percent.

  29. According to a homicide survey conducted by Statistics Canada in 1996, married women are seven times more likely to be killed by a spouse than by a stranger.

  30. To continue to undertake effective efforts to address violence against women, root causes — such as the social context of power imbalances and ongoing systemic attitudes and values — should be explicitly named along with the vulnerability to violence that is experienced differently by the various communities and age groups of women. These include Aboriginal women, immigrant women, visible minority women, refugee women, women with disabilities, live-in domestic workers, women from linguistic minorities, senior women and young women. In fact, the 1993 Violence Against Women Survey found that the rate of victimization of young women in the months prior to the study was almost three times higher among 18- to 24-year-olds (27 percent), than for women in general (10 percent).

  31. There is not yet a clear picture of whether violence against women has decreased or increased in Canada. Reports from a sample of 61 police agencies across Canada indicate that between 1993 and 1996 the number of reported cases of spousal assault dropped by seven percent. These statistics look promising. However, a large number of cases are still not reported to the police. Of those women who reported being victims of spousal violence in the Violence Against Women Survey, only 26 percent had reported an incident of violence to police.

  32. Statistics Canada also publishes an annual statistical review of family violence, Family Violence in Canada: A Statistical Profile (available at http://www.statcan.ca). In 2000, Statistics Canada will release the results of its General Social Survey — Victimization Cycle, which will provide trend information on violence against women and baseline information on the experience of violence in the general population, particularly among older adults.

  33. Statistics Canada released Women and Men in Canada: A Statistical Glance. Produced for Status of Women Canada, the report provides a snapshot of gender equality in Canada using data from 1997.

  34. A more comprehensive overview of the status of Canadian women will be available with the publication of the fourth edition of Women in Canada — A Statistical Report to be completed and published by Statistics Canada in 2000.