precarious employment and labour market inequalities

Precarious Employment and Labour Market

Inequalities

March 4

Precarious employment

Corporate restructuring and public sector restructuring in the neoliberal era have transformed the labour market in Canada.

Part-time work, temporary work, contract labour have become more prevalent.

‘Non-standard’ forms of employment have increasingly become the standard.

Precarious employment This has been referred to as the “feminization

of labour” or the “feminization of employment relations”.

“a growing proportion of work arrangements carry wages, benefits, terms and conditions of employment resembling those conventionally identified with women and other marginalized workers” (Fudge and Vosko, 2001: 272).

Flexible forms of labour offer benefits for employers (in the private or public sector) but what is the impact on workers?

Women and Paid Labour Women were drawn into the paid labour market

during WWII. During the war, labour force participation among women peaked at 33%.

After the war, women were encouraged to leave the labour market and return to the home. Labour force participation among women dropped to 25%.

After a relatively brief decline in their labour force participation, women increasingly returned to paid employment over the postwar period. Not until 1967 did female participation surpass the wartime peak.

Women and Paid Labour Today, their labour market participation rate has

become increasingly similar to that of men. In 2006, 73.5% of all women aged 15-64 and

were part of the paid work force, up from just over half of such women in the mid-70s.

The participation rate for men, aged 15-64 is 82.2%.

The participation rate for women in Canada is among the highest in the OECD. The OECD average is just 60.8%.

Women and Dual Earner Families

“As the real wages of men have stagnated and, for many, declined ever since the mid-1970s, women have entered the labour force to maintain and increase real family incomes.”

“The dual earner family is now very much the Canadian norm.”

Paid Labour and Motherhood “There has been particularly sharp growth in the

employment rate of women with children in the past two decades.”

“In 2004, 73% of all women with children under age 16 living at home were part of the employed workforce, up from 39% in 1976.”

“by 2004, 65% of all women with children under age 3 were employed, more than double the figure in 1976 when just 28% were employed.

“Similarly, 70% of women whose youngest child was aged 3 to 5 worked for pay or profit in 2004, up from 37% in 1976.” – Statistics Canada.

Women and Paid Labour Women are much more likely than men to work part-

time – 26% of employed females versus 11% of employed males (as of 2006).

The majority of employed women continue to work in occupations in which women have traditionally been concentrated.

In 2004, 67% of all employed women were working in teaching, nursing and related health occupations, clerical or other administrative positions, and sales and service occupations.

http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census06/analysis/labour/tables/table3.htm

The Income Gap There continues to be a significant income gap between men

and women. In 2005, the average annual pre-tax income of women aged 16

was just 62% the figure for men. In 2005, women working full-time, full-year had average

earnings of $39,200, or 70.5% what men employed full-time, full-year made that year.

“The gender wage gap for full-time/full-year workers closed steadily through the 1980s until the mid-1990s”

“The gender pay gap in Canada is now the fifth biggest among 22 OECD countries, and somewhat greater than in the United States.” - CLC

Women and Education Women have made significant advances within the education

system but we can still see the impact of gender roles. In the 2001/02 academic year, 57% of all full-time university

students were female, up from 52% in 1992/93 and 37% in 1972/73.

Women made up 58% of all students in Bachelor’s and first professional degree programs, compared 51% of those in Master’s programs and 46% of those working toward their doctorate.

Women made up only 30% of all university students in mathematics and physical sciences, and just 24% of those in engineering and applied sciences. – Statistics Canada

http://www.caut.ca/uploads/ivorytowers2006.pdf

Women and Education Women have made significant advances

within the education system but we can still see the impact of gender roles.

“Half of women aged 25 to 44 now have a post secondary qualification, compared to 40% of men”

Yet, comparing university-educated men and women, women earned just 68% as much as men in 2005.

Female Scientists and Engineers “For every woman who held a science or

engineering (S&E) doctorate in Canada in 2001, there were four men.”

“For each age group, earnings of female science and engineering PhDs were significantly lower than those of their male counterparts.”

“For every dollar earned by a male doctorate holder, female doctorates earned 77 cents.”http://www.statcan.ca/english/research/11-621-MIE/11-621-MIE2007063.htm

Women’s Unpaid Labour

Women remain responsible for the vast majority of unpaid labour in the home, including child care.

A national child care program has been a longstanding demand of the women’s movement.

Early Childhood Education and Care

Fall 2006 Cuts to Women’s Programsby the Federal Government

Status of Women Canada, cutting 40% of this govt agency’s administrative budget, altering its mandate and changing its rules so that women's groups cannot use federal funding to do advocacy or lobbying. In March 2007, the government reinvested at least some of the cut funds back into the Women’s Program.

The Court Challenges Program, which provided financial assistance for groups (including the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund) waging court cases that advanced language and equality rights, was eliminated.

Grace-Edward Galabuzi. 2006.

Canada's Economic Apartheid:

The Social Exclusion of Racialized

Groups in the New Century. Toronto:

Canadian Scholars’ Press.

Racialized Workers and the Division of Labour

“From early European attempts to take control of the land, resources, and trade from the First Nations, which involved restricting their economic participation, to the selective importation of African-American, Asian and Caribbean labour for specific sectoral and occupational deployment, race has substantially determined access to economic opportunity in Canada” (Galabuzi, 2004: 177).


“In the 1960s, the demands of an expanding economy and diminishing migration from Europe led to the removal of legal restrictions against non-European immigration” (Galabuzi, 2004: 176).

Despite the increasing diversity of the labour force in Canada, racialized workers face structural barriers within the labour market.


“Racialized groups experience disproportionate access to sectors and occupations where non-standard forms of work are dominant” (Galabuzi, 2004: 183).

“Racialized groups predominate in low-income sectors…as well as in low-status occupations” (Galabuzi, 2004: 183).


“For many racialized group members, educational attainment has not translated into comparable compensation, labour market access, or workplace mobility” (Galabuzi, 2004: 185).

“Racial segmentation is clearest in occupational and sectoral segmentation” (Galabuzi, 2004: 193).

Temporary Migrant Workers

Foreign workers continue to be an important source of labour for the Canadian economy. Not all of these foreign workers that contribute to the economy and pay their taxes receive full citizenship rights.

Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP) Non-Immigrant Employment Authorization Program

(NIEAP)http://www.thestar.com/topic/Nannies

http://www.thestar.com/topic/TempWorkers

El Contrato (The Contract)

Documentary, 52 min long, available from the York U library.

It sheds light on the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP), in particular, Mexican migrant agricultural workers that work in south-western Ontario.