I think it's true that women are vastly over-represented in the precarious employment field for a variety of reasons, often because of competing family responsibilities, both with children and with aging parents.
If they can enter the labour market—and that's difficult for many women, especially single mothers—they find themselves in jobs that don't make them eligible for employment insurance and that are seasonal, part-time, and don't pay very much. If they are collecting social assistance, there is a huge impact on overall income because of clawback measures.
It's an incredibly difficult situation to climb out of poverty when you're faced with this whole barrage of barriers to getting reasonable, secure, paid employment.