Thank you kindly, Madam Chair.
As just mentioned, I'm Linda Savoie. I welcome the opportunity to appear before this committee as part of its study examining the economic leadership and prosperity of Canadian women, including in the area of entrepreneurship.
As you already know, for the most part Status of Women Canada works to promote and advance equality for women and girls through its focus in three priority areas. The first is ending violence; the second is increasing the representation of women in leadership and decision-making roles; and the third, which is very relevant today, is increasing women's economic security and prosperity.
These three priorities allow us to take a comprehensive approach to promoting gender equality between men and women and also to consider the needs of diverse groups of women and girls across the country.
Advancing women's economic prosperity is a responsibility that is broadly shared by the private sector, various levels of government, and certainly a number of our federal departments and agencies. Through our collective efforts over the past decades, women now represent some 47% to 48% of the Canadian workforce. Women hold leading positions in government, in the private sector, and in the non-profit sector, and women are graduating from our academic institutions in ever-increasing numbers.
At the same time, as policy-makers we know that challenges remain. We can all recognize that because of a variety of social and economic factors. Part-time work remains considerably more frequent among women than among men. In what are often still seen as traditionally female sectors of the economy, such as the health occupations, women earn just 47¢ for every dollar earned by men, according to Conference Board of Canada data. The incidence of low income among female lone-parent families is some three times higher than that in lone-parent families headed by men.
In 2012 women represented just 4% of those working in construction trades and 20% of those working in primary industries, such as forestry, mining, and oil and gas. As apprentices, women remain under-represented. In fact, women accounted for just 14% of registered apprentices in 2011. In the business world, women held majority ownership of only a very small percentage of small and medium-sized businesses, some 16% in 2011.
Finally, as a last thought, women today still hold only about a quarter of senior management positions in Financial Post 500 companies and less than 16% of total board seats within those companies.
These statistics underscore the importance of having access to good data to inform policies at the federal level affecting the economic situation of women in Canada.
For this reason, Status of Women Canada, in its role as a knowledge broker, has financially supported regular updates to the Statistics Canada publication entitled Women in Canada: A Gender-based Statistical Report. The report, which we shared with you at a previous meeting, shows where the gaps and opportunities are for women in Canada. The research demonstrates that there are many determinants of economic well-being for women in Canada, which is why the federal government takes a multi-faceted approach in responding to this important issue.
In response to these challenges, the government has put in place a number of measures, some of which you will hear about from my colleagues at Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada. I also hope that you will have the opportunity to hear from other officials representing key federal departments that are working to advance economic opportunity and economic empowerment for women in Canada.
For its part, Status of Women Canada has invested more than $53 million in funding since 2007 for projects that specifically focus on improving women's economic security and prosperity. Of this amount, over $9 million has been approved for projects to support women in entrepreneurship, and over $12 million has been approved to recruit and advance women in non-traditional sectors.
A recent call for proposals is helping communities create new economic opportunities for women by advancing women in non-traditional occupations, increasing economic options for women, and improving prosperity for immigrant women.
Finally, I want to highlight for the committee that Status of Women Canada's role supporting implementation of gender-based analysis across government also helps improve the quality of economic support provided to women by departments and agencies. This occurs by integrating gender considerations—that is, the unique attributes of men and women and how their circumstances may differ—into the decision-making processes of government.
Madam Chair, all of these measures indicate how Status of Women Canada works with its partners to increase the economic security and prosperity of women in Canada, which we will continue doing in the weeks and months ahead.
I hope this information will be useful as the committee embarks on its study.
I thank the committee for its time today and would be pleased to answer your questions.