“STALLED REVOLUTION”? FACING THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC STATUS OF CANADIAN WOMEN WITH NEW PARADIGMS OF WELFARE AND
LABOUR
GLOBUS term paper
August 26, 2008
The push towards full economic equality for disadvantaged or disenfranchised groups and individuals is obviously of fundamental
importance from the point of view of social justice. But before we begin a discussion on our particular topic concerning the
socio-economic status of women in Canada, we would first like to contextualize our discussion in relation to “human
rights”.
The notion of “human rights” has concrete bases in codes of law, philosophies, and religions which cross cultures
throughout history. The recent history of the idea of human rights as universal and inalienable is sourced in
Western Enlightenment thought. The Enlightenment saw the birth of “first generation rights” with a demand for
equality in a political sense. “Rights” took on a more diverse application with the rise of socialism and a new
emphasis on economic and social equality. Experience within the framework of human rights has led to greater insights as to
their inseparable interdependencies and interactions with each other.
“JUSTICE” IN RELATION TO SOCIO-ECONOMIC RIGHTS
The wider concern of “justice” is considerably
older than that of “human rights” in particular - among philosophers, we see works such as Plato’s Republic,
which entire work is constructed around the single question of the nature of justice, and we find a classical definition of
justice in Aristotle’s Ethics, that of “giving to each one his due.” A fundamental difference in context
and emphasis may be seen in the discussion surrounding “justice” and the discussion surrounding “rights”
- rights seem to ensure that at the particular level of individual or identifiable groups, that not one is sacrificed or forgotten
for the sake of ‘other’ interests and seem generally to be discovered in the context of their having been abused
- a justice-based approach tends to be linked with generic problems or a more communitarian approach. Though the words differ
in their contexts, one might say that essentially justice and rights are the Though the words differ in their contexts, one
might say that essentially justice and rights are the same thing and imply one another for their mutual realization
- just as the individual exists because of the community and the community is based upon the individual. Justice presupposes
the interconnection of political, social, and economic structures which makes it possible for the capacities or rights of
all individuals to be maximally realized in accordance with their right to self-determination. When Kant formulated his categorical
imperative for moral action, the basis for treating human beings is always to treat each as ‘an end in himself(herself)’.
This fundamental principle of being an end in oneself confers the possibility of possessing rights. This “being an end
in oneself” further implies that there are conscious and voluntary or moral capacities at stake, because something receives
the status of being an end in itself when it has the capacity of proposing or claiming purpose. Another way of putting the
basis of rights is “the right to have rights”.
INSTITUTING RIGHTS - RECREATING STRUCTURES
“It is quite possible that at a particular point in time or in a given state of affairs a right is not feasible to
be realized unless appropriate changes in the institutions and social arrangements are introduced (…) changing the institutions
or (…) institutionalizing the right, would be a part of the obligation of the duty-bearers.”
The advantage of the language of “rights” stemming from our particular legal and liberal humanistic culture
are immediately evident - theoretically, a legal basis indicates unconditionality and universality; the possibility of enforcement
via legal and social mechanisms; and a public text, covenant, or some other equivalent to which plaintiffs can appeal
and which provide ground for interpretation and progress at the academic and practical levels. However, formulating laws is
not always sufficient, particularly in the case of economic, social, and cultural rights (or to import a more recent term
originating from “developing” countries - “development” rights). Rights can precede their concrete
and binding formulation in law. While laws can be agents of social change, on the other hand it must be recognized that the
law cannot (or at least does not) contain all possible forms of justice, nor, even where laws contain essential principles,
do they always provide clear recommendations for their implementation, especially as developmental rights as we experience
their requirements, are essentially open-ended, calling for constant review. One must comprehend the underlying social, cultural,
and sub-cultural causes of inequality and proffer solutions sensitive to their contours. Human rights law (and quasi-law)
continue to serve a regulative role even these theorizations, as a reminder in the attempts to pursue “justice”
that particular groups or individuals cannot be sacrificed or overlooked, thus ensuring the real cultivation of human “flourishing.“
It is necessary for the striving of groups, the theorizing of academics, the innovative experiments of political or intra-political
bodies, and the hard work of experts in economics and other fields to bring new configurations of justice into our conceptual
and experiential horizons. This is the reason I have chosen, instead of analyzing past achievements, to structure my essay,
first, to pointing out the sources of the inequities of the current situation, and secondly and more briefly, to propose new
paradigms in light of the unique factors in this inequality.
This essay is engaged within our own specific context of Canada. Our concern is the economic disparity between men and
women, particularly manifested in the gender wage gap.
CANADA’S GENDER WAGE GAP
In view of the fact that many laudable efforts towards achieving equality rights for women have taken place over the past
century (as well as many accompanying changes at the level of cultural consciousnesses) many Canadians were surprised to discover
the fact that women in Canada are still earning less than three quarters of men’s wages. In 2005 (the most recent year
for figures), women working full-time for the full year earned an average of $39,200, or 70.5% as much as comparable men who
earned an average of $55,700.
The natural response to this state of affairs is to have recourse to rights-based legal mechanisms. It has been necessary
(and it is a continual effort) to address “systemic” and “intentional” discrimination within the workplace
which formed a harsh reality in much of our recent history. For a brief overview of the successes as well as of the challenges
that continue to face pay equity, please see Gender Equality in the Labour Market.
Efforts toward a “fair playing-ground” in the form of anti-discrimination laws and policies are as we have
noted, necessary. However, achieving real justice, as we have hinted, requires not only fair playing fields, but a recognition
on our part that people bring different burdens to the playing field. Gender difference poses a particularly challenging
problem in this respect, in view of the “roles” that have accrued not only by exterior political impositions but
which have also become deeply ingrained in other discourses, whether religious, philosophical, or even scientific or biological
- to such an extent as to affect women’s internal identities and consequently their expectations for themselves, their
capacities, and their “deserts”. A theory of “self-expectation” stemming from a “scripted”
gender role in Canadian women has not been specifically explored as a cause of the gender gap - in a way, it seems partially
discounted by the alacrity with which women have entered the workforce in such vast numbers. One cannot help asking the question
why men have not adequately increased their participation in the unpaid labour force, which may be a fruitful line of inquiry
that has remained largely unexplored. This is particularly odd given that male involvement in child care holds tremendous
implications for women’s overall status.
CAREGIVING - WOMEN’S “HIDDEN” BURDEN
“Women, regardless of their labour market status, continue to bear the primary responsibilities for dependent care
and household work in all industrialized countries.”
Gender Equality and the Labour Market - Lessons Learned
“From the standpoint of time, married women, particularly those with children, continue to do significantly more
housework than married men….” Converging Gender Roles
Mothers, regardless of employment status, consistently feel more time-crunched than fathers (Zukewich 2003 finding, cited
in Converging Gender Roles)
For generations in Canada, women’s unpaid care giving was not accorded the status of labour. The significant contribution
that women provide via their care giving and domestic work is a fairly recent “discovery”.
WOMEN’S REVOLUTION; MEN’S “STALLED REVOLUTION”?
Women have entered the workforce in vast numbers in the past couple of decades. There are many reasons for this surge -
a change in culture, extensive anti-discrimination laws and the opening of many occupations that were traditionally closed,
the seizing of opportunities for greater education. While women have entered the workforce in burgeoning numbers, it appears
that they have shed little of their care giving responsibilities, perhaps because men for their part have not come to equal
women in stepping beyond gendered roles by filling the remaining quota of care giving labour.
In 1986, women with children did 2.2 more hours of unpaid labour per day than their male counterparts (3.3 versus 1.1 hours).
The difference has since decreased to 1.3 hours in 2005 (2.8 versus 1.5 hours), which is still a substantial disparity.
Something that is also important to note is the difference in kind that often takes place between male and female
unpaid labour.
Despite the fact that women are, overall, healthier and happier when they participate in paid labour, they still
carry heavy pressures because of their “double day“. When women are co-earners with male spouses, two thirds
of the women felt time-stressed compared with one-half of the men. When members of a dual-earner relationship work full-time
and there are children, women tend to report dissatisfaction with the balance between life and work (only 52% of women with
children in couples with long hours felt satisfied with their work/life balance or WLB, the lowest rate overall in the study,
in contrast with 71% of their male counterparts).
UNPAID LABOUR: ECONOMIC COSTS FOR WOMEN
“Being the primary caregivers of children continues to be reflected in women's lower incomes, even with their
increased labour force participation.”
What stands out in these findings is that women bear their care giving responsibilities in a way that is different than
men, which, we will see, considerably impedes their opportunities for economic equality within a market-driven labour force.
The incapacity of the labor market to integrate caregivers with divided responsibilities may perhaps also be inferred from
the fact that, even in relationships where the male and female partners formerly shared fairly equal divisions of unpaid and
paid labor, that parenthood is the occasion of a trend toward traditional gendered divisions of labour.
The effect of a woman’s commitment to care giving is that she seeks a job that can be subordinated to this priority.
Women are over-represented in non-standard jobs in fact, in 1999 these jobs accounted for 41% of female employment (while
only 29% of male employment). The problems with non-standard jobs, particularly with the kind of low-skilled, service jobs
in which women tend to be over-represented, is that they provide smaller and less stable incomes; they tend to lack medical
benefits; and can be stagnant or unrewarding from the viewpoint of human interest. Even when care giving women work full-time,
standard positions, they tend to work fewer hours, and they are often excluded from consideration for raises and career advancement
because their presence at their job is punctuated by short and long absences, whether for maternity leaves or for family emergencies.
Naturally, women are at a still greater risk for economic instability without the support of a co-earning spouse. There
are many more single mothers than single fathers: “In 1961, only 9% of all families with children were headed by
a female lone-parent, numbers that increased to 16.4% in 1991 and 20.1% in 2001, rates that are much higher than among men.
In a world where one family breadwinner is rarely sufficient to stay economically afloat, women who face the full responsibility
for financial as well as care giving responsibilities face crushing and sometimes impossible burdens. It is no wonder then
that women form the majority of the poor in Canada and that mothering is the single most important factor leading to poverty
in old age.
POLICY PROPOSALS
The final part of this essay concerns strategies for remedying these problems in light of our preceding discussions. In
proposing areas for policy reform, the report Gender Equality in the Labour Market: Lessons Learned identifies five
areas of reform: employment standards, equal opportunities policies, policies that affect pay, labour market training, and
policies to reconcile work ad family responsibilities. We have already partially remarked on the efforts in the field of equal
pay for work of equal value although there is much more to be said in that direction (see the report for a more comprehensive
approach) The question of labour training is also a very important one. We will focus, however, on more structural reforms
with a view to reconciling work and family responsibilities.
Provision of adequate child care would be an fundamental component of any reform in this area. However, daycare in and
of itself is not a comprehensive solution. On the one hand, it could possibly send the message that unpaid care-giving labour
is economically and socially of low value, which is contrary to human experience and would furthermore fail to give adequate
recognition to the long commitment that women have borne to it. However, from a practical point of view, while making daycare
available would be of undeniable and obvious benefit for single mothers, and is immediately linked with our objective of increasing
a woman’s economic status via increasing her available hours for paid employment, it would not necessarily mean,
even in a dual-parent relationship, that a woman would not still carry most of the primary burdens of family coordination
(scheduling, etc other stuff) after daycare hours in additions of her workweek. Thus while reliable and affordable
or free daycare would increase a woman’s wage earning time, it may not decrease her time-stress significantly.
A more comprehensive solution would include integrating the right to leisure and the choice to give care for women
and other workers as well as the right of children to reasonable leisured access to their parents (while keeping in
mind the objective of encouraging a better distribution of parental care between the male and female parents). These are the
reasons why we have chosen to focus more on structural changes.
There is sufficient evidence to show that the labour force is not adequately accommodating for those who bear parenting
or care giving responsibilities, partly because the current configuration of our market-driven labour force continues to assume
the traditional model of separate spheres in breadwinning and care giving. If we reformed the labour force as a whole so that
it addressed the reality that every earner may carry equal responsibilities as a caregiver, women would no longer be trapped
in non-standard jobs, because all jobs, including highly skilled ones, would have already incorporated standards of flexibility.
FLEXIBLE WORK - BENDING PARADIGMS
“(E)xisting Canadian workplace practices and regulatory models remain largely based on an old industrial model and
a social pattern of the able-bodied white male principal income earner working for a single employer on a full-time permanent
basis.” Addressing Work-Life Balance in Canada
One of the most recent interesting trends in job flexibility has been towards “job-sharing.” Job-sharing is
in some ways a familiar phenomenon (for example, family-operated businesses and medical doctors) but the idea of proposing
job-sharing as a systematic reform in a post-industrialized world still seems to be a novel one. Very little formal investigation
of the social and economic impacts of job-sharing has been conducted. On the other hand, state and provincial governments
have been experimenting with it, and private-sector studies have showed that job-sharing shows success in matching the need
for work/life balance of employees over the different stages of their life cycle, thus maintaining them in the workforce and
au courant with their skills, while increasing their capacity for productivity in comparison with a more stream-lined
approach to paid labour.
The particular benefits that job-sharing would offer to our context is that women would be able to maintain their place
in desirable jobs even if family responsibilities take high priority in their lives. This would enable women who desire (or
are moved to from lack of appropriate support) to invest more time in caregiving at certain intervals in their lives to have
the possibility for simultaneously maintaining their skills at the level of their cohort. This would eliminate the cases of
highly educated women working at jobs that do not match their potential, and it would be a greater incentive for women to
pursue highly specialized training in the first place if they knew that they would be able to employ their skills after giving
birth. Because of the kinds of jobs it would open to women, job-sharing would mean an increase in earnings at the per/hour
levl as well as the likelihood of included benefits. The human value of their workplace would be enriched as information sharing
would increase, and the greater stimulation and pleasure which skilled labour provides would enrich the self-esteem and morale
of individual women. Furthermore, success in the workplace is correlated with empowering women to negotiate their labour in
the home. If the workplace itself is changed, it would ensure that women would be able to negotiate more help from their male
co-parents, who would be similarly enabled to meet care giving demands because the flexibility of their workplace.
This is one way to help to narrow the gender gap. This solution, however, fails to address our concerns on the issue of
workers earning sufficient wages to support themselves and their children, for a part-time job would need to be especially
well-paid in order to suffice for one’s own needs and one’s children - this is a question that is particularly
urgent for single mothers, who do not have a partner to share childcare and earning quotas. What about these women and their
children?
SOCIAL WELFARE
The welfare system is often conceptualized as a “social net” for the disenfranchised of society (a category
for which single mothers are heavily at risk). There is, in Canada, at the heart of our notion of “welfare” an
unusual dissonance with a philosophy of human rights that is otherwise much-touted.
Participation in the fruits of shared resources and the fruits of human advancement should not be considered something
that is earned on the basis of approved forms of labour, or to be granted by special favor in other circumstances,
but is a basic human right sourced in the stake that each member has in the human community. The Universal Declaration states
that in particular motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance, (CITE) thereby recognizing
the unique risks and disadvantages which mothers and their children can face in many current social structures. Economic equality
is the fundamental requirement for other rights to be meaningful - it ensures access to the resources necessary to fulfill
fundamental material needs and furthermore, for those who are only beginning to gain a place in complex social networks (because
of youth or overwhelming responsibilities or other factors), it forms the necessary starting capital for investing in their
capacities through education, training, cultural and leisure activities, and other forms of social participation, integration,
and networking processes.
Apart from conceptual problems, there are also structural problems with the Canadian welfare system. Essentially,
the Canadian welfare system was organized with male earners in mind - to fill in their unemployment gaps. In addition to the
inadequacies of a welfare system that does not recognize the contributions, still less the specific needs of mothers and caregivers,
there is considerable feeling and stigma against those who are poor in many Anglo-influenced countries. Would-be welfare recipients
are subject to a means-based test, and women to invasive checks to ensure there is no “man hiding around the house“,
and in general to a humiliating, alienating and wearisome process which, far short of respecting their status as persons and
their achievements in attempting to provide for their children, imposes upon them an atmosphere of suspicion. Furthermore,
actually receiving the benefit is contingent upon arbitrary, senseless factors such as a “willingness to work“
- and is also subject to bureaucratic discretion. In addition to these problems, the welfare system creates a powerful disincentive
to work, as obtaining any kind of paid employment cuts welfare funding, which makes employment undesirable particularly when
the kind of jobs (at least to those in demographic seeking welfare who are disadvantaged by care giving responsibilities,
lack of education or experience) offer less income and benefits than one would receive under the welfare system.
It has been observed that public policy is especially ambiguous about supporting women in their dual burden, seeming to
“waver” between supporting women’s “earning role” and “caring role” while providing
sufficient support to neither, with the result that women are abandoned to poverty in both of their capacities.
BASIC INCOME AND HUMAN RIGHTS
An alternative system to most existing welfare paradigms is making its way in academic circles - namely, a proposal
for a basic income that is universal, that is, offered to every citizen, and unconditional, that is, free of a means test
or other conditions.
Before we investigate a universal basic income proposal, it would be well to consider an intermediate proposal
or what is called a participation wage, which would be available for caregivers, volunteers, the disabled, and similar
groups of people who are engaged in other forms of contribution that are not generally elsewhere recognized in economic terms.
Julieta Elgarte examines this proposal for its potential to benefit women, but she ultimately identifies a number of administrative
difficulties with this kind of solution. James Mulvale suggests that a universally offered income would actually be
more feasible in attaining equality for women, and furthermore, the reform would address many other social problems for the
same price.
The first reaction with which many people face a the general reaction many give is "feasibility" how is it possible
to introduce such a widespread and - presumably - costly reform? Van Parijs treats of these questions, showing that it may
not be so impracticable as many people initially suppose it to be. The chief difficulties facing an implementation of a universal
benefit may, in fact, be ideological ones. The idea that the individual is entitled to a living income rather than having
to “earn” it in accepted forms of labour (otherwise being simply “granted” it in exceptional cases)
is difficult to take root even in countries that profess devoted adherence to human rights principles. There is a disinclination
to perceive an integral connection and mutual dependency between individual and public interests in Canada that is partially
manifested in the fact that most of our social reform policies have taken the shape of collective services. Another indication
of this broad attitude is that children are often seen as a private concern or even as a consumer choice, a view which has
disastrous impacts for children, naturally, but also for the women who undertake their care.
BI FOR WOMEN - A FEMINIST APPRAISAL
“Many authors have rightly seen this ability of a UBI to provide income security for homemakers to
be a strong reason for advocating the proposal from a gender perspective. Alstott (2001), for instance, stresses that American
women face two distinctive economic risks the combination of which translates into lifelong income insecurity, namely main
responsibility for child care and low earnings (due in part to women’s adjusting their working lives to accommodate
family needs).“
The benefits that a basic income would have for the caregivers with whom we are concerned are fairly obvious - it means
a sure, steady income to provide for themselves and for their children (similar to Baby Bonus - check).
The implications of this would mean that (assuming concomitant reforms in childcare) a woman would be more free to pursue
a career simultaneously with her care giving responsibilities if she so desired, while not leaving her impoverished if she
chooses to dedicate her full time to care giving. It would also give a care giving woman exit power from relationships in
which she did not previously have, in light of the fact that she depended upon a co-earner (or even sole breadwinner in some
cases) to provide for her children. Furthermore, with this increased power, women would be capable of negotiating different
aspects of a relationship - including, but not restricted to, equitable divisions of labour. Finally, Basic Income would provide
women with security for retirement, regardless of their paid work hours.
CRITICISM
There is also a cogent criticism of Basic Income from the gender perspective. Jim Mulvale cites the concerns of Ingrid
Robeyns in this regard, that BI could re-entrench traditional gender roles and mean an actual loss in income if BI benefits
are less than job incomes, as well as the loss of social rewards of paid labor participation. This may in turn create further
problems such as statistical discrimination against women. Robeyns, however, treats this concern by recommending that a BI
shold be supplemented “with other social policy measures that liberate women (and at the same time men) from gender
role expectations.” One such “social policy measure” could be the implementation of our recommendation of
job-sharing as a new labour norm along with a mandatory shorter workweek which, with the accompanying cultural changes, would
accommodate women, encourage the unpaid labour participation of men, and thus prevent the reforging of traditional gender
roles and hierarchy. If BI and labour reform were implemented together, BI would on the one hand subsidize the shorter workweek,
while labour reform on the other hand would ensure that the paid labour market remains both feasible, attractive, and accommodating
to care giving women. This labour reform would empower women by enabling them to keep all the human advantages of rewarding
labour outside of intensive care giving, giving them both power and skills to negotiate with their male partners, while at
the same time instantiating a permanent and explicit space to further expedite the male crossing of the gendered work barriers.
CONCLUSION
Achieving economic equality for women in Canada is a complicated issue that requires cognizance of the concrete impediments
that women face in the current economic and labor structures because of their continuing care giving responsibilities, the
lack of adequate male support, as well as the outdated labour and welfare structures. Much work is to be done in discerning
ways to implement structures that are more conducive to producing equity. It would perhaps also be advantageous to bring in
more interdisciplinary approaches to balancing the opportunities gap that persists between the sexes - to be attentive to
the interwoven histories, both external and internalized, that continue to play an important role in women’s offering
themselves in care giving. There also needs to be work done in the exploration and development of the rights of children (and
other persons requiring intensive care) and how to achieve these needs from more the concerted standpoints of different disciplines.
I hope that this analysis and proposal for structural change will provide an occasion for fruitful reflection and involvement
in these matters.
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