Status of Women Committee on May 14th, 2014

[Alison Hale]

One thing we have noticed over time which started before the recession is the decrease in employment in manufacturing and there are more men than women in manufacturing. So some of that would be related to that as well.

It's a fairly complex picture of how you disentangle it but one of the factors is how the decrease in manufacturing impacted more men workers than women because women, as I said, are more in the public sector versus the private.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

Because of the type of industry that they were in....

I understand that StatsCan is or was working with post-secondary educational institutions to capture a wide range of employment data. What knowledge gaps are you attempting to fill and how would this be helpful?

[Alison Hale]

One of the areas—it's not in my area of expertise—but I do know that we're building the data on post-secondary education, and one of the things we know we can do is to link that data with some of the information we have on salaries. Then you can see where people, based on their education, might be with their salary in say 10 years or 15 years down the road.

I don't know of any right now that are in progress but I know there have been previous studies with that sort of information. I could provide them to the committee if I can find any at Statistic Canada, but I know that sort of work is ongoing.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

Sorry, did you say there have been some studies that were completed?

[Alison Hale]

I'd have to go back and look to see if I can find any from Stats Canada. I know there's a lot being done outside of Statistics Canada, that people are doing research, basically looking at things longitudinally. But I could go back and look for something at Stats Canada and forward it to the committee.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

Okay, thank you.

Do you have any information or stats on the longevity of businesses or enterprises started by women.

[Alison Hale]

No, we don't have that information.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

So we don't know if they last a year, two years, or five years? There's nothing on that?

[Alison Hale]

No.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

What are some of the areas of the national household survey that are specific to women and men who work outside the home?

[Alison Hale]

Do you mean as self-employed? Basically the labour content of the national household survey is very similar to that in the monthly labour force survey, but of course there is a larger sample size, so you can look at it in more detail by specific occupations if there are specific occupations that are of interest. We have that broken down by male and female. I can easily provide information as to where exactly that information is if people want to look at it.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

That would be very much appreciated. You could send the information to the clerk. That way, we would obtain an answer to the questions asked by Ms. Truppe.

Ms. Ashton, you have seven minutes.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you very much, Ms. Hale and Mr. Nault, for joining us today and sharing the important work of Stats Canada with our committee.

I'm interested in the latter part of your graphs here, where you make reference to paid help and no paid help. I'm wondering if you could elaborate as to what that refers to.

[Alison Hale]

Basically, that's the concept of whether a woman who is self-employed has employees working for her or not. That's the difference, but it's also true of men. That's how we break down self-employment. There are two ways of breaking it down. One is whether it's an incorporated or unincorporated business, and even, within those, whether or not they have paid help.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Perfect. Okay. Thank you very much.

One of the things we're looking at in this committee is barriers to the economic prosperity of women. We've heard from a number of our witnesses that one of the key challenges women face is the lack of child care and the fact that either it keeps women from accessing training or it keeps them from getting on with their careers or it interrupts the careers they have. One thing we want is to better understand how much of their day women spend doing things like child care or home care or caring for their parents or whatever, which I understand, of course, is known as unpaid work. I'm wondering if you can tell us if you have statistics on that specific area.

[Alison Hale]

I'll pass to Mr. Nault.

[François Nault, Director, Social and Aboriginal Statistics Division, Statistics Canada]

My division is responsible for the General Social Survey. One of the cycles that are part of that program is called a time-use survey. We're asking a representative sample of Canadians to fill out a 24-hour diary in which they note all the time they spend on all the activities they do. That's a key source of information to capture unpaid work.

The last time we did it was in 2010. We're going to redo it in 2015.

With respect to your question, the average amount of time that women spend daily on housework was four hours and 15 minutes in 2010, compared to three hours and 42 minutes for men.

So we do have detailed information on how much time is spent on housework and other unpaid work.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

So housework would include child care?

[François Nault]

Yes. It would include child care, elder care, other dependent care, all the cooking, the housework, and so forth.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

I appreciate the work you're doing on this front, because it's clear we need the statistics to understand what women's days look like and the barriers they face. I'm wondering, knowing that the long-form census is no longer mandatory, if you feel the understanding of women's lives and women's days, including unpaid work, will be hampered as a result?

[François Nault]

The issue is not so much that the long form has become a voluntary survey. The issue is that there was a very extensive analysis of the use of the census data, and there was a question in 2001 and 2006 on unpaid work, but when all things are considered, it takes a lot of questions and probing to really understand all the complexities of unpaid work.

The census is not the best vehicle to capture that information. The best vehicle to capture that information, I think, is the General Social Survey time-use survey with that diary. We cannot impose on all Canadians to fill a 24-hour diary that is necessary to understand all the aspects of unpaid work.

We do have the information—I think very detailed information—on those from the general social survey. It's probably the best way to capture that information.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Our committee is concerned about how we can make concrete recommendations. Perhaps your statistics would be more secure if we had a mandatory way to have Canadians fill in a 24-hour survey.

Or I can just leave it there.

We want to make evidence-based decisions, but obviously, if it's a voluntary kind of situation, then it's problematic for us to say “these are the kinds of things that need to be done”.

I'm wondering, in terms of your focus on first nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples, how much of your work in gathering statistics in these communities is gendered, and what, perhaps broad conclusions—given the little amount of time we have left—you could draw based on the realities you see amongst indigenous women.

[François Nault]

For most, if not all, of our surveys, we do collect gender, so we can always compare the situation of men and women, including aboriginal women.

In 2012 we did the Aboriginal Peoples Survey again, for the fourth time, so we have a breadth of information on aboriginal people and aboriginal women.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Were there any key challenges that might connect with barriers, in terms of prosperity, that come to mind based on that?

[François Nault]

Well, if you refer to access to child care, certainly aboriginal women are also—I would have to check—probably facing the same issue. Aboriginals in general tend to have more children at a younger age, so it can be a barrier to participation in the workplace, and also to completing their education. I haven't brought those statistics with me, but it certainly makes sense.

There are issues for aboriginal men as well in completing education. I think the education for aboriginal women is improving more rapidly than for aboriginal men.