Poverty and Mothering

Women and Paid Work

Today, more women enter paid work out of economic necessity and due to the decline in men's earning power. One salary is typically no longer enough to support a middle-class family. The wage gap between men and women has been closing, in part, because men's average wages have declined. Much of this decline is linked to the disappearance of unionized secondary sector or industrial manufacturing jobs, as many of these jobs have “gone south” or offshore, to parts of the world where labor is cheaper.

Most employed women have one full-time, permanent paid job, but a growing number of women work in nonstandard arrangements—a category that includes part-time, temporary, self-employed and multiple-job holders; and this has contributed to a growing proportion of women who find themselves among the working poor. According to Statistics Canada 2000, by 1999, 41 percent of employed women in Canada had a nonstandard work arrangement, up from 35 percent in 1989. Women remain more likely than men to have this kind of employment arrangement, and hold the majority of all part-time jobs.

Women are also more likely than men to have temporary employment. This is due to the changing nature of work and the relatively unchanging nature of family life. The vast majority of women work in the service sector, which now employs about 75 percent of all workers in Canada and the United States. Most of these women do the same kinds of jobs they have traditionally done. That is, about 70 percent of employed women work in teaching, nursing and health-related occupations, clerical/administrative positions, and sales and services. By contrast, these occupations employ a much smaller proportion of men.

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