:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
[English]
It's nice to see you again, actually. It is a pleasure for me to be with the committee today.
[Translation]
Thank you for inviting me to speak about the status of women in the labour market.
[English]
As you know, I have with me Mr. Thompson, who has appeared before this committee previously on this matter, and together we will do our very best to respond to inquiries and questions from committee members.
As the Deputy Minister of Department of Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, I am focused on ensuring that our department is supporting Canadians affected by the economic downturn in the labour market and supporting Canadians who are vulnerable. I see today as an opportunity to discuss with members of this committee how the downturn is affecting certain groups, such as women, and what supports are available.
What I want to start with is giving you a scan of how Canadian women fare in the labour market and sum up how their situation compares internationally.
[Translation]
Canadian women have made remarkable strides forward in both education and the labour market in recent years.
[English]
They are consequently relatively well positioned as Canada begins to experience the effects of the unprecedented global economic recession. With respect to education, Canadian women have the highest rate of post-secondary educational attainment among all of the OECD countries: in 2006, over half, or 51%, of Canadian women ages 25 to 64 had completed post-secondary education.
I know a lot of witnesses have come before the committee quoting statistics to you, so one of the things I asked my officials to do is to mark in my statement the source of the statistics. If there are questions on these, we'd be happy to work with committee staff as well to provide any supporting materials that might be required. Let me continue on post-secondary education.
Post-secondary attainment is even higher among young women. Women represent a clear majority—60%—of recent Canadian university graduates. Among people aged 25 to 34, fully one-third, 33%, of women have a university degree, compared with one-quarter, 25%, of men.
These high levels of educational attainment have positioned the younger generation of Canadian women very strongly to meet the needs of the labour market in a globally competitive, knowledge-based economy. On the labour market side, women's labour market participation and employment rates have risen strongly over time and are now converging towards those of men. Women's unemployment rates have been below those of men since the early 1990s.
Canada's overall labour market performance compares favourably with that of other OECD countries. The proportion of Canadian women aged 15 to 64 who were employed—70%—in 2007 was the highest among G-7 countries and sixth among all OECD countries.
The incidence of long-term unemployment among women in Canada is one of the very lowest in the OECD, at 6.3% for unemployment 12 months and over.
However, there is still room for improvement, particularly, I would say, on the income side. Members of this committee will be familiar with the statistics that women still earn less than men in Canada: on an hourly basis, women now earn 84%, on average, of the hourly earnings of men. However, the hourly earnings gap has narrowed since 2000, in part due to the rising educational attainment among women.
Among young university-educated women working full time, the gap is essentially zero. As women have moved into more highly paid occupations, their earnings have increased relative to those of men, resulting in a narrowing of the gender pay gap.
Nevertheless, the overall gender wage gap for Canada at 21% exceeded the OECD average in 2006. This remains obviously an ongoing source of concern and consideration. The highest rates of part-time work, which I know has been a topic of discussion in this committee, 45%, are found among young people aged 15 to 24, which probably is not a surprise given their stage of life. However, among people over 25, the incidence of part-time work is much higher among women than among men: 22% for women compared with 8% for men in our February statistics. Proportionally, among working adults 25 years of age and over, two-thirds of part-time workers are female.
[Translation]
Adult women are much more highly represented in part-time work than men.
[English]
Let me turn to the economic situation and its impact on women. If past experience is any guide, it shows that recessions of the 1980s and 1990s saw fewer women than men lose their jobs.
[Translation]
This effect was largely related to women's relatively lower representation in the goods-sector industries hardest hit by the recession, such as manufacturing, construction, and primary industries.
[English]
For example, over half of the jobs lost in the 1980s and 1990s recessions were in manufacturing, where women accounted for only 26% and 28% of employment respectively. We are seeing a similar pattern in the current recession to date.
Since October 2008, when employment losses really began, women have accounted for only 15% of net job losses, although they represent fully 47% of employment. This pattern is consistent with the current experience we're seeing in the United States and the European Union.
Older women, 55 years of age and older, have done particularly well so far. They are the only demographic group that has seen an increase in both employment and employment rates since October.
In general, women under 25 were underrepresented amongst cumulative net job losses. This, again, is highly related to women's relatively low representation in the goods sector, where they account for only 22% of total employment and where employment losses to date have been concentrated. Fully 65% of the net job losses in Canada since the onset of the downturn in October 2008 have been in the goods sector.
Now I'd like to outline a few points about the government's response. During this unsettled economic time, employment insurance is the first line of defence for those who have lost their jobs.
[Translation]
Let me first note that El is an insurance system for the loss of employment income. Access is determined by individual work patterns of contributors, not by gender.
[English]
Allow me to delve a bit more deeply into eligibility for and duration of EI benefits and how those are determined. Through the variable entrance requirement, the current EI program has built-in flexibility specifically designed to respond automatically to changes in local labour markets. As the unemployment rises, entrance requirements ease and the duration of benefits increases.
To be more specific, the eligibility for and duration of employment insurance benefits is based on the number of insured hours worked and the unemployment of the EI economic region in which an individual lives. It's not a province or a territory; it's broken down on the basis of EI economic regions.
[Translation]
This ensures that the amount of assistance provided increases as the unemployment rate rises and that support adjusts to the changing needs of regions and communities.
[English]
Women's access to regular benefits, which are regular benefits associated with paid employment, is high. According to Statistics Canada's employment insurance coverage survey, in 2007, 81% of women who had been paying employment insurance premiums and were then laid off or quit with cause were eligible for regular benefits.
A further finding from this survey may also be of interest to the committee. It showed that of all unemployed individuals, relatively fewer women than men, 9.3% as compared to 9.8%, were unable to qualify for employment insurance due to insufficient insured hours.
As we know, many women must juggle work and family responsibilities. The EI program contains many features of particular importance to women in light of their broader societal role and the unpaid work they do with respect to caregiving. The 50 weeks of EI maternity and parental benefits plays a critical role in supporting Canadian families by providing temporary income replacement for parents of newborn or newly adopted children. These benefits provide flexibility for many women and men to stay home to nurture their child during that important first year.
The 2007 EI Commission's monitoring and assessment report—I know the committee has heard of that report previously—shows that women accounted for more than 86% of claimants receiving parental benefits. Other evidence from that same report demonstrates the many features of the EI program that are a support to women. It indicates that the current replacement rate and the duration of maternity and parental benefits works well for most Canadians. On average, parents use 95% of the 50 weeks of benefits that are available.
The EI program also provides compassionate benefits to take time off work to care for a critically ill family member. Again, the majority of compassionate care claimants, 76%, are women. Women's access to these EI special benefits, as we call them, as distinct from regular benefits, is very high. There are 97% of women working full time who have sufficient hours of work to qualify for special benefits. This is the same level of access as men who are working full time.
[Translation]
The survey also indicates that for women working part time, 66% have sufficient hours to qualify for special benefits, compared with 59% of men.
[English]
It is important to note that individuals working part time for a full year can qualify for EI regular benefits with as few as 8 to 14 hours of work per week, or in the case of special benefits, where we have a flat entry requirement, 12 hours of work per week.
Another important feature of the EI program of benefit to women is when they return to the workforce after an absence to raise their children. We have provisions in the EI program that would require a new entrant or re-entrant into the workforce to accumulate 910 hours of insured work, and that is a provision that we do not apply to women returning to the workforce after an absence to raise their children. The EI Act includes, as I said, a specific provision allowing re-entrant mothers to qualify for benefits with the same number of hours as are needed by other workers in their region under the variable entrance requirement.
Overall, women are net beneficiaries of the EI program. They receive more in benefits than they contribute in premiums.
The government is now looking at how best to provide self-employed individuals with access to EI, maternity, and parental benefits and is in the process of establishing an expert panel to consult with Canadians on this topic.
Let me turn to Canada's economic action plan. I mentioned earlier the flexibility of the EI program in responding to changing economic conditions and the adjustments the government has made to meet the needs of Canadians. Through Budget 2009 the government has introduced Canada's economic action plan, which includes new temporary measures that provide nationally the advantages of an extra five weeks of EI benefits, which were previously offered as part of a pilot project only in specific regions with high unemployment. These measures also increase the maximum number of weeks available, from 45 weeks to 50 weeks in regions of high unemployment.
[Translation]
As a result of these adjustments, in just the first year, some 400,000 El claimants could benefit.
[English]
These are departmental estimates that we have provided.
In addition, the government has introduced a 14-week extension to the duration of work-sharing agreements, one of the provisions in the employment insurance program. It's designed to help companies facing a temporary shutdown in business to avoid layoffs and preserve jobs by offering EI income support to employees who are willing to reduce the hours in their work week.
Just last week the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development announced $60 million being invested to improve the delivery of employment insurance, including hiring additional staff, and to support the implementation of these measures. The announcement also included improving the speed of payment to work-sharing claimants by exempting them from submitting the biweekly declarations that we have been asking of these participants in the past, except when they have exceptional conditions to report, such as, for example, other employment.
The government has announced as well a number of other measures, including support for aboriginal peoples, older workers, and communities and training assistance overall, that are helping to prepare women and men for long-term employment.
In conclusion, Madam Chair and members of the committee, much progress has been made to improve economic security for women. The measures I have outlined are helping to achieve this goal, and EI does play a central role in this regard. In addition, solid analysis on a wide range of issues, including gender, is key to fulfilling our departmental mandate. And given this mandate, it's important to emphasize that gender-based analysis is integrated as a matter of course into our policy and program work in the department.
EI is responding to the needs of both women and men in Canada, and we will continue to examine the impact of the EI program and how it is helping Canadian workers adjust to labour market challenges and changes, particularly, I would add here, in the face of pretty unprecedented economic conditions.
I'd like to thank the standing committee on behalf of the department for its reports over the years. The observations and the recommendations and the work of this committee have provided valuable assistance in shaping policy as it relates to women and have been an important input to our policy development process.
[Translation]
Thank you. I would be pleased to respond to your questions, with Mr. Thompson's assistance.
:
I will do my best. I will ask Mr. Thompson to answer the second question, because he is more familiar with the details of the program.
[English]
Maybe if I could, though....
[Translation]
I apologize, but I would like to continue in English, because the details are a little technical and—
[English]
I don't want to add anything to the confusion around this.
You talked about the reconciliation of the figures. One of Mr. Thompson's requests when he was here previously was around this issue of the percentage of men and women who do not qualify for employment insurance because they don't have enough hours. We're just finalizing that analysis in the department, and it will be on its way to the committee shortly. I think you asked for a historical comparison.
Let me go back to a couple of things. One is about how you qualify for employment insurance benefits. The first thing is that you have to be paying into the employment insurance program, so automatically those folks who don't contribute to EI aren't eligible. That's actually a significant percentage. It includes folks who haven't been in the workforce and people who are in self-employment. It's actually a very significant percentage. Almost 35% of women who don't qualify for EI are in that situation because they are not contributors.
Next, let's say you're in the program and you're a contributor to EI. Then you lose your job. Well, to be eligible for the regular benefits under employment insurance, it would basically have to be an involuntary separation from work. If people voluntarily quit their jobs--if they quit to go back to school, for instance, or because they want to find another job--they are not eligible for employment insurance according to the current legislation. They make up about 16.4%.
Then there are the people who don't have enough hours to qualify. That's the 9.3% of women. In the case of the people who may be coming into your office to ask you why they can't get EI, we have to go back and look at the reason they're not getting EI. Are they contributing to the program? What were their reasons for separation from the workforce? Do they have enough hours?
Because economic conditions have been changing so dramatically, it's important to go over the importance of the variable entrance requirement for having enough hours. For the variable entrance requirement, as I think I said in my remarks, we look at EI economic regions, the number of hours necessary to qualify for EI benefits, and the number of weeks for which you'd be eligible. It depends on the employment situation in the EI economic region you live in.
Over the course of the last...since October, so not very many months, five months of labour force data, 26 of the 58 EI regions in the country have seen the variable entrance requirements adjusted on the basis of changing economic conditions. For the most part, we've seen unemployment going up, although there have been some exceptions there, so 26 of--
:
I'm currently the president of CRIAW, and I want to acknowledge our coordinator, Fathiya Wais, who's here with me.
Some of you are familiar with CRIAW. We're a research institute that's been around for over 30 years and is dedicated to doing research to help organizations take action to address social justice and equality for all women. We really have been focusing on that “all women” perspective, to see women not as one universal, homogeneous group, but to recognize the diversity of women's experiences.
We want to emphasize how the EI system has failed women. We've investigated data in other research studies. As Bonnie has mentioned, the cuts to our research funding have meant we can't do primary research on this at this time, but we know you've received a lot of evidence that shows that many women do not qualify for EI benefits, especially if you take out the compassionate care and the parental leave.
As you've heard, it's a system that works best for men. It was modelled on a traditional male breadwinner system, and women's participation in the labour force, as Ms. Russell has just talked about, is vastly different. It's a system not geared to meeting the needs of women in the labour force.
Things have changed. Women are working for pay in record numbers, and the EI system needs to address the reality for women. Right now, we believe EI punishes women, especially those who try to combine family responsibilities and work outside the home. It's not flexible. Women are in and out of the labour force more often because of family responsibilities. EI does not adequately take that into consideration. We believe it needs to be revamped to address that different reality.
As I'm sure you're aware, unless women have adequate income, of which EI is an important part, they're often forced to stay in very difficult, if not abusive and violent, relationships. Not only for economic equality, but for other forms of freedom, it's important that women have an EI system that meets their needs.
We also wanted to say it's not just a gender-based analysis that's important. It's absolutely important to have that, but it's not sufficient. We would argue that we need to go beyond gender and look more at what we call an intersectional feminist analysis that recognizes women as a diverse group. We need to take that diversity into account in our analysis. We need to understand especially what's happening with the most marginalized women. What's happening to aboriginal women, who I would argue probably rarely qualify for employment insurance because they're not often employed? What's happening to other disadvantaged women, whether they are disabled or not? What's happening to immigrant and refugee women? How are they being affected by this program? To what extent are they benefiting or not from this program?
We urge you not only to continue to call for gender analysis, as you are, but also to try to ensure that it's an even more diverse analysis, more of an intersectional analysis that gets at the reality for many different groups of women.
As well as understanding EI, we urge that more research be done on social assistance because we know that more women will have to rely on that. There have been tremendous changes and tremendous hardships for people who are relying on those benefits.
During this period of recession and economic restructuring, we ask that you also push for good gender and intersectional analysis to understand better what's happening to women and to different groups of women as this economy is being restructured and as this recession bites deeper.
Nancy is going to talk about specific recommendations.
:
EI was supposed to put money in the pockets of the unemployed so that they could continue buying to counter the effects of the downturn in the economy, as we all know. FAFIA submits that increasing women's access to EI benefits and increasing EI benefit rates will promote women's equality and their ability to contribute to their communities and local economies through increased purchasing power.
In 2008, the 52nd UN Commission on the Status of Women concluded that “investing in women and girls has a multiplier effect on productivity, efficiency, and sustained economic growth”.
FAFIA is also concerned about women's access to Service Canada. This is a pretty practical concern. In order to submit an EI claim when filing for the first time, claimants must either file in person at a Service Canada office or apply online. While we recognize that Minister Finley has recently announced a commitment of $60 million to increase administrative capacity of the EI program, we would also ask that consideration be taken to serve those who do not have Internet access or do not live near a Service Canada centre. Since most rural and remote communities do not have public transit, it can be very difficult to get to the nearest Service Canada centre. Those people who do not have access to a vehicle--in most cases women, because of their traditionally lower incomes--have to rely on others for transportation; as well, if they don't have Internet access, then of course they can't make their initial claim online.
I take as an example a woman I know well from my home community in rural Nova Scotia. She had no Internet access at home. Also--and I don't want to be ageist--she is an older woman and did not know how to file her claim online. In order to file her EI claim, she had to drive 40 kilometres to the nearest Service Canada centre. Luckily she had her own car. If she hadn't, she would have had to rely on the goodwill of others, because there is no public transit in her community, and normally taxis can be very costly in rural communities, if they're available.
Once she arrived at the Service Canada centre, she was directed to their computers. The agents there offered her no assistance because everything has to be done online. Luckily a fellow claimant offered assistance. This was a stranger.
This is not a system that should be based on goodwill; rather, it should be based on service, as the name of the program would imply. The services must be made more accessible to claimants. The woman in Nova Scotia, as well as many others in her community and in communities across Canada, can be better served by taking a more proactive approach in reaching them. This is as basic as having part-time people working in communities to help people file their claims. It is taking a more practical approach to ensure more people are reached.
As well, I want to underline the fact that access to affordable, accessible child care is a real benefit to women's economic security, as well as to their ability to participate fully in the paid workforce and to be eligible for EI benefits should they lose their jobs.
The five recommendations that we'd like to put forward are joint recommendations from FAFIA and CRIAW.
We would like to see an elimination of the two-week waiting period before people receive their benefits.
We would like to lower the eligibility requirement to 360 hours, regardless of region, and I understand that other witnesses before the committee have made the same recommendation, as our sister organizations have.
As a starting step, we would like to see the benefit level increased. We recommend 60% of wages over the best 12 weeks of employment; however, some of our sister organizations are recommending higher replacement rates, and we would certainly agree with that.
We would like to see the number of weeks for recipients to receive EI increased to 50 weeks. This increase would reduce the number of the exhaustees who may have to turn to social assistance for support should they not find replacement employment, which is very likely in this economic downturn.
As well, as per CEDAW recommendations delivered in November 2008 to Canada, we would like to see social assistance rates increased across the country to adequately meet the needs of low-income Canadians, namely women, to meet the real costs of their food, housing, and clothing.
Thank you very much.
In our report, we presented a brief history of all the measures within the employee insurance system since 1940 that have discriminated against women, either directly or indirectly.
I will spare you the details, but we would like to focus on the last measure, namely, from the 1996 reform, a measure that determined eligibility for benefits based on the number of hours of work, rather than the number of weeks worked. In our view, this measure discriminates against women directly and represents a continuation of all the other measures that have discriminated against women, including the first, whereby, until 1957, in order to access benefits, married women had to prove they had a permanent attachment to the labour force. The new rule does exactly the same thing.
The 1957 reform established admissibility based on hours. I have put together some numbers to serve as examples, which you can look at later when you have a written document. The last example available in the document was from Montreal, where the employment rate was 7.5% in March 2007. To qualify, 630 hours of work are needed.
Let us compare a woman who works part time, 15 hours a week, and a man who works 40 hours a week. In order to qualify, the woman needs to have worked for 42 weeks; the man, 16 weeks. If they earn the same hourly wage, they will each be entitled to 17 weeks of wages. However, for the same number of work hours over a much longer period, which therefore means a greater effort and more consistent presence in the labour force, the woman will receive $124 in benefits while the man will receive $264. They accumulated the same number of hours to qualify, but the man's benefits are more than double what the woman receives. If we compare the benefits received during the 17 weeks, we see that the woman will have received $3.34 in benefits for each hour of contribution, while the man will have received $7.12.
No matter what example we look at, and no matter what region, people who work part time—and 68% of part-time workers are still women—will be eligible for benefits to a lesser degree than people who work long hours for a shorter period. For that reason, we recommend returning to an eligibility system based on the number of weeks.
When the government introduced that measure, it claimed it would be beneficial for people who work part time. The reality is quite the opposite. In fact, people who work less than 15 hours a week, and who were excluded under the old rule, may never qualify.
Another problem is how the average weekly earnings are calculated. The divisor system is used. The income earned in the last 26 weeks is divided by the number of weeks worked, or else a denominator is determined and that denominator is usually two weeks more than the number of weeks of 35 hours that must be worked. In our example, with an unemployment rate between 7% and 8%, 18 weeks would be the denominator. This particularly affects women who work in precarious jobs, especially in industries like food service, hospitality and retail, which are seasonal, but not necessarily in regions of seasonal employment, where the unemployment rate is generally high.
Women work a lot more in casual jobs. The 26 weeks that are taken into account could include many breaks, which could also lower the average weekly earnings.
The third aspect of the reform, which dates back to 1979 and also discriminates against women—and deliberately, from its inception—is the rule known as the NERE rule, concerning new entrants or re-entrants to the labour force. Let us suppose that in 2007, an individual worked less than 490 hours, but met the requirements in relation to the unemployment rate in her region in 2008, and she finds herself unemployed in 2009. If she has not accumulated 910 hours, she will still not be eligible.
That rule was introduced in 1979 specifically to prevent people who are entering the labour force from being eligible for employment insurance, specifically young people who are working their first job and older women who are returning to the labour force after raising their children. It was partially modified in 2001, for people who received maternity or parental benefits. However, this still affects women who have three children, for example, and whose absence is longer or who, upon the arrival of their second child, were not eligible for benefits.
We therefore recommend that the NERE rule be eliminated altogether. We also recommend that we return to a system based on the number of weeks worked, taking into account all weeks of seven hours or more.
We have other recommendations, but perhaps during the question and answer period we could—