First of all, speaking of people who do provide unpaid work in the form of care for older persons, they are often themselves older persons, just not quite as old. Extensive research has demonstrated that in Canada specifically, women, even from their mid-40s, are more vulnerable to losing their paid work and so become more vulnerable to being forced into either early retirement, where it's available, or taking on unpaid work to help their relatives. This has such detrimental effects on their own health and their own stamina that it becomes a problem for them to maintain paid work during that period.
There is a really serious problem right now in the way in which unpaid work is encouraged, and exacerbated, I would say, through the pension income-splitting system. The latter allows older couples to receive massive tax cuts, with a top benefit of an extra $11,000 per year per couple, I think, through pension income splitting. It's an incentive to caregiving for older women, and a disincentive for older women who most need income to not go into paid work. That's just one example of one demographic group that is at risk from this.
All the way through the system, the way that unpaid work is forced on women is hidden and inserted into virtually every provision. For example, you've already heard about the working income tax benefit that is available to low-income couples. It has three defects. The first is that there is a cap imposed on the family income as a whole, meaning that the smart thing for a low-income family to do is to send the person who can earn the most money into paid work. Statistically, that will be the male partner, if there is one. Second, it means that if a woman wants to use that benefit, she will be disqualified by virtue of her husband's income. If she has a low income and he has a high income, she will not be able to take it. And third, even if she were the one who is able to take advantage of this, there is no child care built into it.
As a lateral and related point to that, the participation tax rate alone on second workers and lone parents is extremely high in Canada. By the time child care costs are added in, a lone parent who has to pay for child care and also for taxes on earnings will spend 94% of what can be earned, on taxes and child care, according to the latest OECD stats on Canada. What lone parent can earn such a high income that they can afford to go into paid work? For a second earner in a couple, that rate, which is called the participation rate plus child care rate, is 78% for second earners.
Women who have care responsibilities are absolutely blocked by access to affordable care, and it is affordable care itself that is underfinanced in Canada. We have the lowest level of spending on that among the entire OECD, and that has been the situation for decades.