UTGB Vol 5.pdf - Robson Hall Faculty of Law

58 Underneath the Golden Boy
• The rate of part time employment is much higher among women than
men (27.7% for women compared to 10.9% for men) and while part,
time work may be a choice for some, at least one in four women part.-
timers report that they would rather have full,time paid jobs (which
does not include women who work only part.- time due the unavailability
and/or the prohibitive cost of child care);
• In 2002, part.-time jobs held by women paid a median hourly wage of
$10, and a median weekly wage of $181.25;
• Part.-time jobs are approximately one,half as likely to provide benefits as
fuU,time jobs; and
• Relative to their participation in the labour market generally, women
are overrepresented among temporary workers, holding 57% of contract
employment, 31% of seasonal employment, 61.1% of casual employment
and 47.3% of employment obtained through agencies.
The relationship between women and part.-time employment is a phenomenon
that is evident in the facts cited above and it is of great significance to this
Review. 33 This reality is linked to the disproportionate share of unpaid labour
done by women in relation to men, leaving them fewer hours to devote to paid
employment. A recent study by Statistics Canada reveals that just under 70% of
part,time workers are women and over a quarter of all women in the labour
market do less than 30 hours of paid labour per week. 34 Factoring out retirees
and the 15-24 age bracket (the latter being a period when young women and
men often combine part.-time employment with attending school), the
predominance of women in part.-time work is even more striking. Among
workers age 25-54, women outnumber men by a ratio of four to one. 35 As
described by Statistics Canada,
There is a distinct division of labour between the sexes. [In 1998,] women spent an
average of 2.8 hours daily on paid work and 4.4 hours on unpaid work, whereas the
situation for men was the reverse: they spent 4.5 hours on paid work and 2.7 hours on
unpaid work. ...[D]espite the increased participation of women in the labour market,
women's share of unpaid work hours has remained quite stable since the early 1960s at
about two thirds of the totaL 36
33
Evelyn Braun, supra note 6 at 145-146.
34
Statistics Canada, Women in Canada 2000: a gender based statistical report (Ottawa: Minister
of Supply and Services Canada, 2000) at 103, 123.
35
Ibid. at 124. The percentage of employees working part time is approximately 4.5% for
men, compared with slightly over 22% for women.
36
Ibid. 97.