Thank you very much.
As you've done the introductions--and as, I understand, we have limited time--I will launch right into the presentation. I would like to say, though, on behalf of the chair of the council, John Murphy, and the members, who met this past weekend in Quebec City, thank you very much for inviting the council to appear.
It's very timely for this committee to be looking at women's economic security issues in light of the recently released report of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The committee expressed its great concern about poverty among women, especially lone mothers, precarious workers, women trying to leave abusive relationships, and homeless girls.
Our presentation today, a copy of which you have in front of you, is in four parts: first, a brief word about poverty measures; then a portrait of women's economic security, or lack thereof; an overview of the policy context; and lastly, some possible ways forward. The three of us will then be pleased to respond to any questions you may have.
The first couple of tables identify some ways to measure poverty. I won't go into detail, but they highlight three main points. One, as you likely know, is that there is no official poverty line in Canada, nor are there specific plans, targets, or benchmarks to direct efforts to reduce, prevent, or eliminate poverty.
The second point is that this is not for lack of statistical capacity. There are several good and useful measures. You'll see there the low-income cut-offs that have been used for many years. The low-income measure is used internationally, although in Canada it's calculated a bit differently, at 50% of median income, while in Europe it's set at 60%. Quebec uses that 60% measure as well.
The market basket measure is interesting. It's based on what it actually costs to buy a basket of goods. It was designed by governments, federal and provincial, in Canada largely in response to a sense that these earlier measures were set too high, and rather exaggerated poverty.
The third point, as you can see, is that there's not as much difference among these measures as expected. They can tell us different things, however. Canada's been involved.... Many people argue about the indicator that we should have. Most countries, including the United Kingdom, have concluded that we actually need a set of measures; they have three.
Another indicator of poverty is tracking social assistance rates. In Canada, only the National Council of Welfare publishes this information in its regular reports.
Section 2, the bulk of your presentation, shows a series of charts portraying women's economic security. Sadly, the picture is not a pretty one. Women are more vulnerable to poverty than men throughout their whole lifetime, and they face different types of risk, in particular a high price for raising children and caring for others, and a high economic price as survivors of gender-based violence and abuse.
We focused deliberately in the presentation on women on their own, or raising children alone, as this is where women's risk of poverty shows up most clearly.
We'll mention here how important women's incomes are to couples as well. Many more families would be in poverty if it were not for wives' earnings. Women are actually the primary breadwinners in over a quarter of Canadian husband-wife households. Often it's by default--if a husband loses a job, say, or develops a disability.
Chart 1 shows poverty rates over the last quarter of a century--it's the trends that are important--for the three populations we're focusing on.
Chart 2 provides the same information for women. Note that there's a clear trend in decreasing poverty rates for seniors and a very sizable difference between 1980 and 2004. So we're doing some things right.
For the unattached population under 65, the story is markedly different, with women and men both worse off in 2004 than they were in 1980. Clearly we have a growing problem there.
As for lone parents, the gender differences are large, and the trends for lone mothers are much more erratic than for other women. It's evident that we have a long-standing problem that we've not yet figured out.
Charts 3 and 4 present after-tax poverty rates.
Charts 5 and 6 show a narrowing of the gap between senior women and men as well, which is interesting. In chart 6 we see the effect of lone-parent poverty on their children.
In 2004, just to give you actual numbers from these charts, the after-tax poverty rate for unattached women under 65 was 38.4%. For female lone parents it was 35.6%. For senior women it was 17%.
The committee has expressed an interest in other forms of diversity in addition to family type. In charts 8 and 9, we provide information on women who are immigrants, members of a visible minority, aboriginal, or who have a disability. It's important to note the effect of the intersection of minority and family status as well. In addition to what you see on the charts, for example, the poverty rate for aboriginal lone mothers in 1995—it goes back a bit, but that's the most recent information we have— was 73%, compared with 45% for non-aboriginal lone mothers.
Chart 9 looks specifically at the senior population. Of note here is the fact that unattached senior immigrants and members of a visible minority have higher poverty rates than their younger counterparts. Many may have had less ability than other women because of late arrival in Canada to contribute to CPP, to save, or to qualify for OAS/GIS.
What we have shown so far is sobering, but it's far from the full picture. The next few charts look more closely at what 's going on below the poverty line, where many women and their children live in situations of severe deprivation. Imagine yourself trying to live with $6,000 or $7,000 less than it costs to purchase the food, housing, clothing, and other basic necessities that most Canadians take for granted. As charts 10 and 11 show, many Canadians do face that situation.
Charts 12 and 13 tell the story another way, showing the distribution of women above, close to, and far below the poverty line. Note the extremes among unattached women under 65, where they tend to be in situations either well above the poverty line or in deepest poverty.
Charts 14 and 15 show that, contrary to popular misconception, many people receiving social assistance are also employed. It's not as simple as being on or off welfare, as it's often characterized.
Chart 16 is a very interesting one. I'm going to take a little bit more time here. This gives you an idea of how well Canada's income security concepts and systems are working. The first thing that jumps out —or that we hope jumps out—is how abysmally low average provincial welfare rates are.
To put a human face on this, the $6,000-and-change income you see there is what Mary, for example, an older woman worker, would receive if she lost her job and couldn't qualify for or ran out of EI. In most jurisdictions, she would first have to use up almost all of her savings, and in some jurisdictions she would even have to sell the old car she uses to get to work, which further limits her options, because you're not allowed to have assets
Let's imagine Mary then was 63. A couple of years later, after a couple of birthdays, she's 65. Despite the fact that the maximum OAS/GIS benefits she's entitled to are far below the poverty line, the amount is double what she had last year, but not likely enough to buy her car back.
If Mary had been able to get maximum CPP and OAS/GIS, she would be much better off, as you see in the $22,000 column. We have to point out, however, that women on average receive less than 60% of men's benefit rates. So it's not likely she would reach that level.
Let's now look at Mary's younger neighbour, Sophia. She's the one who's working for the average provincial wage. She, like most Canadians, always believed the best security was a job. She works full-time, full-year. As I said, she only makes minimum wage, but at least she is better off than Mary by $1,000--or is she? What about the EI and CPP premiums she has to pay; the bus ticket she needs to get to her job every day; the additional clothing, shoes, and other necessities she needs in her workplace? She actually ends up quite a bit worse off than this appears.
Now we come to employment insurance, the major income security program that Canadian employees pay for. At a replacement rate of 55%, an unemployed worker getting a full benefit is still managing but isn't much above the poverty line. Remember, women are less likely than men to get maximum benefits, if they qualify at all.
In 2004, only a little over 40% of unemployed Canadians received EI, a big drop from about 80% in 1990.
In the interests of time, I will cover the next points very quickly, but they are extremely important. They're in areas that I know this committee is aware of.
Research shows that women, especially lone parents and their children, stay in poverty longer than other Canadians. And income is not the only measure of poverty. “Time poverty” affects women raising children, women with disabilities, and women caring for others with disabilities. It's women's unpaid work that makes their risk of poverty higher in the first place. So if this is not factored into solutions, they will fail.
There's another dimension, which we might call “safety poverty”, and that's the lack of freedom from violence, especially from physically, psychologically, and economically abusive partners and ex-partners, that prevents many women from taking advantage of economic opportunities.
The last two or three pages focus more on the policy context. You've already seen some of this from chart 16, but I'll recap very quickly. EI coverage and replacement rates are low compared to the past in Canada and compared to other countries. EI, maternity, and parental benefits are least accessible to those mothers who need them the most, although EI evaluations show that there are wonderful benefits for workers and children if they qualify. Minimum wages are not enough to keep individuals out of poverty. There are child care gaps. There are just not enough quality affordable spaces to go around. Welfare regimes, in addition to low rates, strip people of the assets they need to build towards a better future, and they do not allow lone parents to get student loans for post-secondary education. The recipients can't keep much of anything from their earnings if they have paid work. So it's a vicious cycle.
The Canada child tax benefit is a really interesting and very positive program. It's intended to help families stay attached to the paid workforce. However, it's based on the number of children, not the number of workers in the household, which makes it of much more limited value to lone parents. As a comparison, the guaranteed income supplement for seniors, which you're familiar with, provides different rates for singles and couples. Some formula like that might actually make the Canada child tax benefit more accessible for lone parents.
There is no recognition within employment insurance, social assistance, the Canada child tax benefit, or other income supports that women dealing with violence have barriers to employment. With the Canada and Quebec pension plans, much of their impact in reducing poverty for older couples and individuals is based on women's employment. That's important, because if women's employment falls off, poverty levels for seniors will increase.
OAS/GIS benefits, as we've shown, are below the poverty line, and they don't take into account the actual cost of living, such as the exorbitantly high rents in Toronto.
Poverty is costing society and all Canadians a great deal. We brought with us--you'll have it later--a copy of a document called The Cost of Poverty, which outlines that it's not people living in poverty who pay all the costs, it's all of us. Examples of costs include increased health care costs, social disintegration and associated crime and justice, untapped potential, and lower labour market productivity.
In the last slide, to conclude on a more positive note in moving forward, it's important to highlight that there's no shortage of concrete, realistic, and cost-effective recommendations that have been made, including, most recently, by a consortium that includes the Toronto-Dominion Bank. So even corporate Canada is starting to think we might have a problem.
There is no shortage of examples from different parts of Canada, from other countries, of initiatives that have worked. There are also a lot of good intentions. But something is missing, and it's in the neighbourhood of political will, I think. What really is needed, according to the council, is an anti-poverty plan with clear goals to reduce the risk of poverty, to increase the living standards of those living in deepest and most persistent poverty, and to restore dignity to the way in which people are treated. The plan needs targets, indicators to measure results, the assignment of responsibility, and the resources to make it work.
Gender analysis is, of course, an integral part of the way forward in addressing poverty, and addressing poverty is integral to achieving gender equality. Gender analysis means looking at the diverse and dynamic realities of women over the course of their lives.
Thank you.
