Women have been sluggish to recuperate their misplaced floor within the workforce in comparison with males. (Shutterstock)
The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated social and financial inequalities between women and men in Canada.
At the beginning of the pandemic, many ladies stopped on the lookout for work. Data from Statistics Canada reveals that by April 2020, 55 per cent of ladies remained within the workforce, down from 61 per cent in January 2020. As an RBC report identified, ladies’s workforce participation hadn’t been that low because the Eighties.
In 2020, the Canadian Human Rights Commission warned that the pandemic may “erase the beneficial properties which were made in direction of gender equality in Canada.” Over two and a half years after the beginning of the pandemic, the state of affairs remains to be dire. Women have been sluggish to recuperate their misplaced floor within the workforce in comparison with males.
Growing gender inequality
To make clear the restoration course of, I take advantage of knowledge from Statistics Canada to investigate the gender hole in workforce participation in the course of the pandemic. This gender hole displays the distinction in workforce participation between ladies and men.
The Statistics Canada knowledge reveals that whereas many ladies entered the workforce in the course of the pandemic, much more males joined. Women’s participation rose to 62 per cent in August 2022 from 61 per cent in January 2020. Men’s workforce participation elevated by extra, from 69 per cent in January 2020 to 71 per cent in August 2022.
This signifies that ladies at the moment are making an attempt to shut a gender hole in workforce participation that’s wider than earlier than the pandemic. And this gender hole was giant to start with: in January 2020, 965,800 fewer ladies than males seemed for work. By August, the gender hole surpassed the a million mark, as 1,168,000 fewer ladies than males seemed for work.
The unemployment price of ladies rose from January 2020 to August 2022.
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Similarly, the gender hole in unemployment shifted considerably in the course of the pandemic. By August 2022, 6.8 per cent of ladies have been unemployed, up from 5.3 in January 2020. In distinction, the unemployment price for males dropped to five.3 per cent in August 2022, down from 6.5 per cent in January 2020.
This reveals that the ladies face a really new gender hole in unemployment. This gender hole shouldn’t be small both: In August 2022, 82,100 extra ladies than males have been unemployed. Before the pandemic, ladies have been considerably much less unemployed than males: 182,000 extra ladies than males have been employed in January 2020.
The knowledge on these gender gaps assist different findings that present how ladies face extra hurdles within the office than males, and lots of of those hurdles have change into steeper in the course of the pandemic. Women skilled extreme job losses from COVID-19 — particularly in hospitality sectors — due to burnout and unpaid caregiving and home labour duties.
The burden of caregiving
When women and men do maintain jobs, they don’t do the identical kind of labor.
In August 2022, fewer ladies than males labored full-time, although extra ladies have been working full-time earlier than the pandemic. For part-time work, the reverse is true: extra ladies than males labored part-time in August 2022, although much less ladies have been working part-time in January 2020.
Women stay considerably extra concerned in little one care than males do.
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Historically, ladies have carried out extra part-time work due to unpaid caregiving, which they’re anticipated to do. Canadian ladies spend a median of three.9 hours per day on house responsibilities, together with little one care, in comparison with 2.4 hours per day for males. The early phases of the pandemic illustrated this gender hole in caregiving.
Full-time work has historically not accommodated caregiving. A girl chief I interviewed for analysis on gender inequalities in organizations had a girl worker who thought-about quitting as a result of dealing with full-time work and caregiving for her youngsters had change into overwhelming.
Together, they reviewed the worker’s work routine in order that she may work at home on Fridays, which was a sport changer for her. The worker prevented two hours of commute, which enabled her to pack carework into her full work day.
The pandemic has underlined the significance of flexibility, displaying how distant working removes many prices of in-person work, together with prolonged commutes, and permits time for different actions. Many workers now are prepared to alter jobs until they’ll work remotely.
Evolution on the care entrance
When requested why they took on part-time work, the most typical reply given by ladies aged 25 to 54 was caregiving. Caregiving as a motive for part-time work rose quicker for males than ladies. In August 2022, 28 per cent of ladies aged 25 to 54 labored part-time as a result of they cared for youngsters, up from 25 per cent in January 2020.
The enhance in males turning into concerned in caregiving bodes nicely for shifting inflexible gender norms surrounding little one care.
(Shutterstock)
In comparability, seven per cent of males aged 25 to 54 labored part-time due to little one care, up from 4 per cent in January 2020. Women thus nonetheless stay considerably extra concerned in little one care: As of August 2022, 248,300 ladies labored part-time due to little one care, greater than 10 instances the 22,400 males.
Nevertheless, the rise in males turning into concerned in caregiving bodes nicely for shifting inflexible gender norms surrounding little one care. Doing so advantages ladies and men by releasing ladies to do full-time paid work, whereas enabling males to additionally do care work for his or her youngsters.
Claudine Mangen receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
