When it comes to the ratio of male to female earned income - the wage gap - Canada ranks 38th in the world!
That fact and others are outlined in ‘New federal policies affecting women’s equality: reality check,’a publication from the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women (CRIAW).
Among the CRIAW comments:
- At every level of education, women in Canada earn less on average than men, even in female-dominated professions.
- Since the cutbacks of the 1990s, fewer women than men qualfy for Employment Insurance (EI) regular benefits.
- The number of hours of unpaid household work that men put in on a daily basis compared to women is very different: on average 2.5 hours for men and 4.3 hours for women.
- Abuse in the home can drive women and girls into the streets, and lack of housing puts women and girls at further serious risk of violence and early death.
- Federal government caps on legal aid to the provinces have made it more difficult for women to get aid for family law cases, let alone the multi-year process of a Supreme Court challenge.
For more, check the CRIAW website at http://www.criaw-icref.ca/