It's a great pleasure for me to be here today to speak on behalf of the Canadian Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs. I'll do my best to keep it down, but I was told that I had 10 minutes, and I spent the day travelling to be here.
BPW Canada, as we calI it, was founded in 1930, along with our International Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs. Our mission is to improve the economic, social, political, and employment conditions of women in the workforce. We have clubs in over 100 countries, including about 45 in Canada. We are a non-profit organization, funded strictly through membership. We do not receive government funding, and except for essential services such as bookkeeping, we are all volunteers.
We applaud the standing committee's initiative in undertaking these hearings on the economic security of senior women. Income disparity between senior women and men has been an issue of great concern to BPW Canada over the years.
You received a copy of the brief that we prepared last year. It's a position statement on incomes for senior women. Some of the statistics that I use today come from that brief; others come from a fact sheet produced by the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women, and I've brought enough copies for everyone.
We know that a couple of decades ago pension reform in Canada vastly improved the incomes of many senior citizens. But there is still a serious discrepancy between the incomes of women and men in their senior years. In 2003 the poverty rate for senior women in Canada was almost double that of men: 19% compared to 10%.
Over 40% of Canadian women over the age of 65 who are unattached, meaning living alone, live in poverty. That's a lot of women. Why is this the case? I'll give you some statistics, and these come from the flyer I handed out.
At every level of education, women in Canada earn less than men on average. For example, in 2003 women who were high school graduates earned 71% of what male high school graduates earned. Women with post-secondary degrees earned 68.9% of what their male counterparts with post-secondary degrees earned.
Even in female-dominated professions such as teaching and nursing, and in clerical work, men still earn more on average. In 2003 the average earnings for women who were full-time, full-year teachers were $47,500; male teachers made an average of $63,000.
In 2004, 70% of women with children under five years of age were in the workforce. That's up from 37% in 1976, yet women are still expected to be the primary caregivers. In 2004 women missed an average of 10 days of work due to these commitments. In a lot of jobs, when you miss work you don't get paid.
How many days did men miss for their family commitments? Does anybody have an idea? It was a day and a half—not much more than in the 1970s.
Canadian women are less likely to have employer-sponsored pension plans and less able to put money aside in private retirement savings plans.
So on average—and this is average, because we can all point to exceptions—women make less money than men throughout their working lives, so they have less money to live on when they retire. Women live longer than men, as all of us know, so women are more likely than men to be living alone at the end of their lives. Hence the high rates of poverty among women over 65 living alone.
So what are the solutions? In our brief we've listed a number of recommendations. I won't go into detail about them; I'll just list them, because I know time is short here today.
The first thing we suggested was an increase in the guaranteed income supplement. We suggested that the government needs to restructure the Canada Pension Plan, so that it replaces 50% of the income of low-income workers. Right now it's structured to replace 25%, which means that those who receive the least income while they're working also receive the least income when they're retired.
We also recommend that the government increase the contribution ceiling for CPP. Right now it's at $40,500, and that's the maximum earnings on which CPP is calculated. We recommend that it be raised to $60,000, which would mean that higher-income earners would contribute more to the fund. We recommend as well that the federal government develop a dropout provision in the CPP similar to what exists for women with young children, who are able to discount the first seven years of their child's life.
We think the government should eliminate taxes for all individuals in Canada with incomes below the poverty line. We also recommend that the government carry out a review and a revision of all legislation and regulations governing private pension plans to remove any provisions that impact negatively on senior women.
Some people say this situation belongs to the past, because women today when they finish school go right into the workforce. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Many factors continue to impact the wages and salaries of women in the workforce today.
I was glad to hear the committee is taking a holistic approach, because we're saying we need to resolve the problems of senior women living in poverty today. The problem will not be resolved unless you take a holistic approach and look at all the things that impact on what women in the workforce are able to make today. Some of the things are as follows: a lack of accessible, affordable, quality child care; women are still the primary caregivers, so they're working part-time, often in low-paid positions; women entrepreneurs can't have a baby and access EI maternity leave; and pay equity seems to largely be stalled in this country. The total of these factors means that the average woman continues to earn less money throughout her working life, so she will have less money to live on when she reaches those so-called golden years.
Old age will continue to be a time of insecurity and suffering for large numbers of senior women, especially those who are living alone without the key social reforms that promote and support the equality of working women. We realize that addressing economic security for senior women is a complex affair, with no quick or easy solution, but it must be done, and BPW Canada urges the federal government to act immediately on these very important issues.
I'm wrapping up, and before I close, I would like to take an opportunity to comment on the recent changes to the mandate and the budget of Status of Women Canada. We are aware that your standing committee has recommended that the government continue funding all activities of Status of Women at the 2005-06 level or higher, and that the government reinstate the previous mandate for another five years. We agree with your assessment, and this is a quote from your own report: “Whereas the draconian changes to the Terms and Conditions to the Women's Program under Status of Women undermines the very basis of our democracy—the ability to advocate on behalf of vulnerable groups...”.
As a group that has advocated on behalf of working women in Canada for more than 75 years, we totally agree. Without the ability to speak out on behalf of those who can't, many advocacy groups and many vulnerable individuals will be effectively silenced. That is not the kind of society that we, BPW Canada, or you I'm sure, want to live in or want to pass on to your children and their children.
Again, we thank the standing committee for inviting us here. On behalf of our president, Fran Donaldson, and our national board of directors, I wish you well in your deliberations.
