3. Women’s Inequality

Women’s Inequality

Women do a lot more unpaid labour than men and this translates into real inequalities for women.

Unpaid labour limits women’s opportunities to enter the paid workforce – especially in cases where a women is at the head of a single-parent family. According to the 2006 census, 80.1% of the 1,414,100 lone-parent families in Canada are headed by a women. [Read>]
Women are generally more likely to accept part-time or lower-paid employment in order to keep up with the demands of providing care to children or other family members. In 2001 27% of employed women were working part-time, compared to 10% of men. Fifteen percent of women working part-time did so because of childcare and family responsibilities, while only 1% of men did. [Read>]
As women age they face greater poverty because many of them, despite having worked their entire lives in domestic and/or care-giving work, they have no pension of their own.
Because modern capitalism has not constructed ‘women’s work’ as real work, occupations in the paid workforce that resemble ‘feminine’ jobs typically come with lower wages and reduced social status. In 2002, about 70% of employed women worked as nurses, teachers, clerks, and in sales or service positions while only 30% of men did these jobs. [Read>]