[homeles_ot-l] Women, Poverty and Canadian public policy in an Era of Globalization (CRIAW). Presentation to the International Colloquium: Globalization, Societies, Cultures Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities. By Marika Morris.
lj1967 at sympatico.ca
lj1967 at sympatico.ca
Fri Feb 29 13:12:52 EST 2008
Women, Poverty and Canadian public policy in an Era of Globalization.
by Marika Morris
Presentation to the International Colloquium:
Globalization, Societies, Cultures
Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities
May 29, 2000
Edmonton, Canada
ABSTRACT
Almost three million Canadian women live in poverty. This presentation discusses:
a.. the structural reasons for the continued over-representation of women among the poor in Canada;
b.. the social and economic impact of the poverty of women on society, on children and on women themselves;
c.. how Canadian public policies implemented in recent years have contributed to poverty among women
d.. how globalization and trade agreements exert both a direct and indirect influence on Canadian public policy; and
e.. individual and collective strategies and resources for change.
INTRODUCTION
There are 2.8 million women in Canada living in poverty. That's one in five women. Fifty-six percent of the poor in Canada are women. (1)<http://www.criaw-icref.ca/factSheets/Poverty_and_globalization.htm#N_1_> Some, like the Fraser Institute, think that this means there's something wrong with how poverty is measured. Others, who have lived in places like Vancouver's downtown eastside or Aboriginal communities without sewage systems or clean, running water know the realities of poverty in Canada.
What does it mean to be poor in Canada? It's not the same as the deep poverty experienced in some parts of the world. To be poor in Canada means to be surrounded by wealth but have no access to it. It means having to choose between paying your rent, bills, groceries, transportation, doing your laundry and buying necessary medical supplies. It means not having the money for many things other Canadians take for granted: visiting relatives, buying clothes to apply for jobs in, giving birthday or Christmas gifts to your kids. It means living in inadequate housing - often in disrepair and in overcrowded, high-crime neighbourhoods. It means that even five bucks is a big deal. It doesn't necessarily mean being on social assistance. The majority of the poor work for wages, either full- or part-time. (2)<http://www.criaw-icref.ca/factSheets/Poverty_and_globalization.htm#N_2_>
The costs of women's poverty
. Acute and chronic ill health, susceptibility to infectious and other disease, increased risk of heart disease, arthritis, stomach ulcers, migraines, clinical depression, stress, breakdown, vulnerability to mental illness and self-destructive coping behaviours, increased reliance on health care system
. Increased vulnerability to violence and abuse, as poverty traps women and limits choices
Impact of the poverty of women on society
. Child poverty, linked to poor health and poor school achievement
. School performance is best and most stable indicator of adult involvement in criminal activity. Cost of crime in Canada = $46 billion/year, of which $9.7 billion is direct government expenditure on criminal justice system
. Low birthweight - higher infant mortality, disabling conditions (vision, speech, mobility, dexterity, cognition and emotion)
. Democracy eroded and women's perspectives on issues lost when women are kept from participating in the same numbers as men in decision-making structures because of family care responsibilities and lack of funds
National Forum on Health (1997): income is one of the primary determinants of health
The poverty of women has a deep personal impact, from acute and chronic ill health, early death, increased vulnerability to violence and all forms of abuse, and self-destructive coping mechanisms. (3)<http://www.criaw-icref.ca/factSheets/Poverty_and_globalization.htm#N_3_> The poverty of women also has a profound social and economic impact on society. Poor women also mean poor children. Poor children are also more prone to ill health, disability, poor school achievement. According to Offender Profiles prepared by the National Crime Prevention Council of Canada, poor school performance is the best and most stable predictor of adult involvement in criminal activity. (4)<http://www.criaw-icref.ca/factSheets/Poverty_and_globalization.htm#N_4_> Poverty translates into higher health, income security and criminal justice costs, and lessened democratic participation. Poverty quite literally kills people.
What factors make women more vulnerable to poverty?
Some women are particularly vulnerable to poverty, in particular Aboriginal women, women with disabilities, and visible minority women. (5)<http://www.criaw-icref.ca/factSheets/Poverty_and_globalization.htm#N_5_> Each of these groups of women not only have an average annual income significantly lower than that of Canadian women as a whole, but also significantly lower than their male counterparts. In terms of age and family demographics, women most likely to be poor are single mothers and unattached women over 65. Fifty-six percent of lone parent families headed by women are low-income, compared with 23% of those headed by lone parent men. Almost half - 49% - of single, widowed or divorced women over 65 live in poverty, compared with 38 % of their male counterparts. (6)<http://www.criaw-icref.ca/factSheets/Poverty_and_globalization.htm#N_6_>
Structural reasons for the continuing poverty of women
There are simple structural reasons for the continuing over-representation of women among Canada's poor. Two primary reasons are low wages for women's work, and no wages for women's work.
According to Statistics Canada, women do significantly more hours of unpaid work and child/family care than men, whatever their paid employment status. (7)<http://www.criaw-icref.ca/factSheets/Poverty_and_globalization.htm#N_7_> A Statistics Canada study also reveals that the presence of children, rather than education, age or marital status was the primary determining factor in the wage gap between women and men. (8)<http://www.criaw-icref.ca/factSheets/Poverty_and_globalization.htm#N_8_> When men father children, their incomes tend to stay the same or rise. When women have children, their incomes tend to plummet.
Two-thirds of part-time workers in Canada are women. Many work part-time because of family responsibilities. (9)<http://www.criaw-icref.ca/factSheets/Poverty_and_globalization.htm#N_9_> This expectation that women will quit paid work or reduce hours of paid work to provide unpaid caregiving and household work for others has a permanent negative effect on their earnings, pension accumulation, eligibility for benefits, and paid work experience. (10)<http://www.criaw-icref.ca/factSheets/Poverty_and_globalization.htm#N_10_> Considering that one in three marriages end in divorce and that women tend to outlive their male partners (11)<http://www.criaw-icref.ca/factSheets/Poverty_and_globalization.htm#N_11_>, most women are likely to be alone at some point in their lives and rely on their own financial resources.
According to Statistics Canada, women perform between $234 billion- $374 billion worth of unpaid work per year. (12)<http://www.criaw-icref.ca/factSheets/Poverty_and_globalization.htm#N_12_> Instead of their valuable work being recognized and rewarded, women are economically penalized for having children, whereas men are not. And if you think child-bearing and rearing isn't valuable to society, think what would happen if all women refused to have children. The entire human race would be wiped out in one generation. Who would pay for your pensions then?
Underpaid work
There's a direct relationship between taking advantage of women's unpaid labour in the home, and underpaying women in the paid workforce.
Seventy percent of women in the paid labour force are concentrated in five female-dominated sectors: health, teaching, clerical, sales and service. (13)<http://www.criaw-icref.ca/factSheets/Poverty_and_globalization.htm#N_13_> The top 10 most common jobs for women in the 1996 census: retail salesperson, secretary, cashier, registered nurse, accounting clerk, elementary teacher, food server, general office clerk, babysitter (child care worker), receptionist. (14)<http://www.criaw-icref.ca/factSheets/Poverty_and_globalization.htm#N_14_>
These were once seen as the only suitable work for women, as it is exactly what women have done for free in their homes for thousands of years: looking after children and teaching them skills, nursing the sick and elderly, preparing food, cleaning, sewing, serving others, managing a household, helping a husband run a family farm or business. Since women's work in the home was seen as having little or no economic value, so too is women's paid work. Women earn 73% of what men do for full-year, full-time work. (15)<http://www.criaw-icref.ca/factSheets/Poverty_and_globalization.htm#N_15_> Sixty-seven percent of minimum wage earners in Canada are women. (16)<http://www.criaw-icref.ca/factSheets/Poverty_and_globalization.htm#N_16_>
In particular, caring work is undervalued and seen as being without skill. CRIAW recently produced a study on the impact of current home care policies and practices on women's vulnerability to poverty. It found that women, as the majority of home care recipients, paid workers and unpaid family caregivers, were each subsidizing the current home care system in their own way. In particular, the study found a trend toward the quantification of care in terms of measurable activities, such as assigning 10 minutes for a worker to bathe a client, or five minutes to change a catheter. What tended to be cut out was the actual care part of home care. For many individuals receiving home care, the paid worker might be the only contact with the outside world. Sometimes they just need someone to sit down and have a cup of tea with them, and that type of care is just as important to their recovery and well-being as physical care. Social isolation and loneliness us as great a predictor of death as smoking, obesity, lack of exercise and high blood pressure. (17)<http://www.criaw-icref.ca/factSheets/Poverty_and_globalization.htm#N_17_> Yet this work is not viewed as valuable or skilled, so what we found was that home support workers, who are sent in to clean people's homes, are doing this kind of work with no training and no pay. And if you think it's easy, I invite you to spend time with a dying person who is depressed and afraid of death, or an individual with dementia. It's very draining, time-consuming, and it does take skill. (18)<http://www.criaw-icref.ca/factSheets/Poverty_and_globalization.htm#N_18_>
It was within the lifetimes of the people in this room that, until equal pay legislation beginning in the 1950s, it was legal and expected to pay a woman half the wage paid to a man for the same job. Pay equity (equal pay for work of equal value) is not yet a reality for many Canadian women.
Discrimination
A third structural reason for women's vulnerability to poverty is discrimination. Many of the best-paid jobs are in male-dominated science, engineering and computer science, and male-dominated unionized blue-collar jobs. However, women who enter non-traditional occupations often face hostility from bosses or co-workers. Some women (Aboriginal, women with disabilities, women members of racial, ethnic or linguistic minorities) face multiple forms of discrimination: They are subject to all the stereotypes and attitudes toward women, as well as racism, and offensive, destructive attitudes toward people with disabilities.
The fact that women are more vulnerable to poverty than men is not new. It's not that many Canadian women have all of a sudden become poor in an era of globalization, although for some women in the garment and other industries who lost their jobs, this is true. One problem we have been facing is the direct and indirect impact of globalization on Canadian public policy, and the direction public policy has been taking over the past twenty years has been keeping women poor.
The role of public policy
Public policy has a profound effect on women's vulnerability to poverty. Canada has the fifth largest wage gap between women and men full-time workers out of 29 OECD countries. Only Spain, Portugal, Japan and Korea have larger wage gaps. (19)<http://www.criaw-icref.ca/factSheets/Poverty_and_globalization.htm#N_19_> Most industrialized countries have better family support policies than Canada.
In 1997, the federal government gutted the Unemployment Insurance program. It made entry criteria more stringent and it reduced benefits, and gave it a new name, Employment Insurance. The result is that only 30% of unemployed women today are covered by EI, as opposed to 70% ten years ago. Over the same period, the coverage for unemployed men fell from 77% to 42%. (20)<http://www.criaw-icref.ca/factSheets/Poverty_and_globalization.htm#N_20_>
The only public maternity and parental leave provisions in Canada are delivered through the EI system, to which the same stringent criteria and low benefits apply. So 10,000 fewer women are now able to access EI maternity benefits than prior to the reform. (21)<http://www.criaw-icref.ca/factSheets/Poverty_and_globalization.htm#N_21_>
So was EI reformed because we just can't afford such a social program in Canada? Last year, the surplus in the EI account was about $7 billion. Over the last six years, the accumulated UI/EI surplus has grown to $30 billion. (22)<http://www.criaw-icref.ca/factSheets/Poverty_and_globalization.htm#N_22_> This represents the amount that has been taken away from the unemployed and new parents in Canada, particularly women.
Globalization exerts a pressure on governments
In a few days, the United Nations General Assembly is holding a special session to follow up on commitments made at the Beijing World Conference on Women in 1995. Canada submitted a long document outlining all the initiatives it took in the past five years to further women's equality. It lists things such as federal transfers to health care which has experienced a net cut over the years and increased accessibility to post-secondary education which has actually been diminished through withdrawals of federal funds resulting in high tuition. Every initiative listed was either a step backwards for women, or so minor that it was completely undercut by other economic and social policies. (23)<http://www.criaw-icref.ca/factSheets/Poverty_and_globalization.htm#N_23_>
Globalization exerts a pressure on the Canadian government to be "competitive". In the 1960s and 70s there seemed to be an equal emphasis on social and cultural development as there was on economic development. In the 1980s a view gained hold of the economy as the cure for all ills, and of globalization as some kind of all-powerful god, unstoppable, unchangeable, the giver of all good things. For example, Ontario Finance Minister Ernie Eaves recently repeated that the economy will take care of homeless people. Well, the economy doesn't seem to be doing its job.
The following is a timeline of selected events in global and Canadian policy, to show the progression of this ideology:
International Trade
1980s Reagan, Thatcher, Mulroney: announcement that "Canada is open for business."
1989 Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in effect
1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in effect
1995 The World Trade Organization (WTO) established
1998 Attempt to negotiate the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI)
Canadian public policy
1985 Dismantling of Foreign Investment Review Agency
1989-99 Federal government opposes fair pay equity settlement for its own workers, until forced to comply by the courts
1995 Elimination of the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women
1996 Collapse of the Established Programs Financing (EPF) and the Canada Assistance Plan (CAP) into the Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST) - along with a one-third cutback in federal transfers for health and post-secondary education and elimination of social assistance standards
1997 Unemployment Insurance becomes Employment Insurance, more stringent entry criteria and lower benefits
We are expecting too much of the global economy if we think it will eliminate inequality. The economy is based on inequality, and uses inequality to make money.
If economy and trade are the twin gods of goodwill and prosperity then business is the high priest. What's good for business is seen as what's good for the nation, good for everyone. Whereas labour strives for better wages and working conditions, and provisions such as maternity leave, which set a higher standard that others can then use as a basis for negotiation, the goal of business is to make as much profit as possible. However, labour is viewed as self-interested, whereas business is not.
The mythology of the new religion is this:
"We can't afford equality and social programs." Well, Canada ranks 7th out of 29 OECD countries in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, ahead of Japan, Germany, Australia, the UK and others. (24)<http://www.criaw-icref.ca/factSheets/Poverty_and_globalization.htm#N_24_> The federal government is in a financial surplus position, as are many provinces. According to federal Finance Minister Paul Martin, "federal government spending, as a percentage of GDP, is at its lowest level in 50 years." (25)<http://www.criaw-icref.ca/factSheets/Poverty_and_globalization.htm#N_25_> If we can't afford equality in one of the richest countries in the world, who can? And the question is, can we afford inequality?
Other myths about the new economic order is that "the private sector can do absolutely everything better and cheaper." However, every year, there are thousands of business bankruptcies. Many businesses accumulate serious debt, such as Olympia & York, Canadian Airlines. The private American health system is the most expensive in the world. In the US, health care administration cost $995 per capita in 1995, compared to $248 in Canada. (26)<http://www.criaw-icref.ca/factSheets/Poverty_and_globalization.htm#N_26_>In health care and child care, for-profit services are usually of poorer quality, because money that in not-for-profit organizations goes into training, better wages, working conditions and service, (27)<http://www.criaw-icref.ca/factSheets/Poverty_and_globalization.htm#N_27_> in the for-profit organizations goes to owners or shareholders for their private use, perhaps to be spent or invested outside the country.
One aim of globalization is to lower taxes, particularly corporate taxes, in order to make the country more competitive. Concerns are expressed about the "brain drain". As Statistics Canada, recently pointed out, the brain drain myth has no basis in reality: During the 1990s, "Canada gained four university graduates from abroad for every one it lost to the United States." (28)<http://www.criaw-icref.ca/factSheets/Poverty_and_globalization.htm#N_28_>If Canada is such an unprosperous, high-tax hellhole, why does the United Nations rank it every year as the best place to live according to its Human Development Index? The HDI takes into account income, life expectancy and education.
Nobody wants to pay taxes that are wasted, and there is government waste. However, when government revenues fall the first thing to go are public services, and the first to pick up the pieces are women. Every year, some Canadians celebrate tax-freedom day, but on that day they do not seem to stop using roads, running water, garbage services, schools, clinics and hospitals which is what their income and property taxes pay for, along with other services such as food inspection, water quality assurance and environmental protections. That's what so-called tax freedom is, the freedom from tax-funded health, social and community services that strengthen our country and contribute to our health, safety and well-being. It's no freedom for women.
Another fear is that if we don't go along with globalization, we'll be left behind. But we can still trade without signing on to agreements that strip us of our rights and standards. We can work with other countries who do not want to give up their sovereignty over health, environment, culture, labour and human rights, and provide global leadership.
Finally, there is a belief that a strong economy will solve all our problems. A strong economy is necessary as the basis for prosperity, jobs and a broad tax revenue base. However, the economy can't and won't do everything. We must take responsibility for our own society and the problems caused by our society.
We can see that although a United States-style social and economic system generates enormous wealth, that wealth doesn't benefit many citizens. The US has:
a.. the highest rate of child poverty of all industrialized nations (29)<http://www.criaw-icref.ca/factSheets/Poverty_and_globalization.htm#N_29_>;
b.. at least 43 million citizens with no health coverage (30)<http://www.criaw-icref.ca/factSheets/Poverty_and_globalization.htm#N_30_>;
c.. deeply grained disparities based on race (31)<http://www.criaw-icref.ca/factSheets/Poverty_and_globalization.htm#N_31_>; and
d.. a lower life expectancy than Canadians. (32)<http://www.criaw-icref.ca/factSheets/Poverty_and_globalization.htm#N_32_>
The US ranks the worst of 17 industrialized countries on the United Nations Human Poverty Index, which measures functional illiteracy, survival to age 60, long-term unemployment, the income gap between rich and poor and the percentage of the population living in poverty. (33)<http://www.criaw-icref.ca/factSheets/Poverty_and_globalization.htm#N_33_> Canada, by the way, ranks 9th on that particular index.
We are being asked to view health care and other public services as just one more commodity, just one more thing to do for profit. Corporations want to own human genes, and entire sub-species of plants and animals. It's the ideology of the supremacy of the marketplace. If it can't be bought or sold, it's not worth anything. When women care for their families, it's not worth anything. (34)<http://www.criaw-icref.ca/factSheets/Poverty_and_globalization.htm#N_34_> The only time women hear about it is if they are not doing the job, due to addictions or problems of their own.
Globalization also exerts direct pressure on public policy, as many trade agreements are enforceable, while human rights agreements are not. The most widely quoted example is how American-based Ethyl Corporation sued the Canadian government under NAFTA Chapter 11 for $250 million in damages because of Canada's policy banning the gasoline additive MMT, which contains manganese, a known neurotoxin. Canada settled the case with $13 million and a repeal of this Canadian environmental and health policy, even though some US states continue to ban MMT. (35)<http://www.criaw-icref.ca/factSheets/Poverty_and_globalization.htm#N_35_>
The World Trade Organization enforces several trade agreements, such as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) which seeks to eliminate remaining barriers to the movement of capital and goods between countries. It governs compliance with the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS); Trade Related Investment Measures (TRIMS), which determines what governments can and cannot do in regulating foreign investment; Trade Related Intellectual Property Measures (TRIPS), which sets enforceable global rules on patents, copyrights and trademarks; the Sanitary and Phyto-sanitary Standards Agreement (SPS), which sets constrains government policies relating to food safety, plant and animal health; the Financial Services Agreement (FSA), established to remove obstacles to the free movement of financial services corporations, including banks and insurance companies; the Agreement on Agriculture, which sets rules on the international food trade and restricts domestic agriculture policy; as well as other agreements dealing with information technology and telecommunications. The WTO has judicial power to challenge the laws, policies and programs of countries that do not conform to its rules, and to strike down those countries' laws if they are seen to be too "trade restrictive." WTO cases are decided - in secret - by a panel of three trade bureaucrats. (36)<http://www.criaw-icref.ca/factSheets/Poverty_and_globalization.htm#N_36_>
Canada has also signed many international agreements on human rights, labour, the environment and social development. (37)<http://www.criaw-icref.ca/factSheets/Poverty_and_globalization.htm#N_37_> But there are no real consequences for non-compliance. NAFTA was passed by the Canadian Parliament and has force of law in Canada. The Supreme Court has recently been considering international human rights agreements Canada signed as signals of government intent, but they do not have the same status as laws passed by the Parliament of Canada.
So what is happening is the reframing of many of many of our most cherished health, labour, environmental and human rights policies that generations have fought for in terms of "non-tariff trade barriers" and "unfair trade practices".
Action
The goal, in my personal view, is not to stop international trade. It's to ensure that international trade and business practices do not erode democratic decision-making, environmental protections and labour and human rights. The European Union has managed to liberalize trade without dropping labour and health standards.
It's certainly not enough to make public statements. For example, APEC leaders and ministers have written down that social development and benefiting the people of their countries is one of the primary goals of the trade organization. They even wrote down that they want women and men to benefit equally and fully from economic growth. (38)<http://www.criaw-icref.ca/factSheets/Poverty_and_globalization.htm#N_38_> However, without measurable goals, or enforcement mechanisms, this is simply public relations. Some of APEC's members, such as Indonesia and China, are among the world's worst human rights abusers. In Indonesia, women don't report rape to the police, because it's often the police themselves that rape, torture and murder citizens.
We need collective and global action. If only one nation state stands up for health, environmental and labour standards, social and cultural development, capital can move elsewhere. It takes many people standing together.
It's hard to take the time to act on these issues, because most of us are busy, tired, or disheartened, feeling that nothing we do has any impact.
However, there have been some limited successes, like the scuttling of the so-called Regulatory Efficiency Act in 1996, which would have allowed corporations to sign private deals with government avoiding existing regulations. (39)<http://www.criaw-icref.ca/factSheets/Poverty_and_globalization.htm#N_39_> Public pressure also helped derail negotiations on the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), for now.
Some actions we can take include:
a.. Public education and pressuring government to take specific measures that will reduce poverty among women:
a.. a minimum wage that reflects the cost of living
b.. pension reform with women in mind
c.. re-establishing humane standards in social services
d.. full, rather than partial, restoration of funds for health and post-secondary education
e.. affordable housing
f.. stopping the clawback of the National Child Benefit
g.. pay equity
h.. tax relief for the poor, rather than for the well-off
i.. maternity/parental leave for all new parents, not just those who meet stringent criteria for EI
j.. good quality, subsidized child care
k.. policies and practices that support women and men with their family responsibilities
l.. a national debate not on if to value women's work but how
a.. Pressing for trade deals to be subject to health, labour, environmental and human rights agreements, not the other way around. Press for citizens' rights to sue governments and corporations, individually or in groups, for not operating in accordance with international human rights agreements.
a.. Contact your political representatives
b.. Get involved in action campaigns
c.. Challenge the media
b.. Consumer boycotts and pressure: What works is targeting specific high-profile corporations on specific issues, e.g. the successful campaign to get Pepsi out of investing in the military dictatorship in Burma.
c.. Support organizations that advocate and provide services for poor people: shelters, food banks, women's groups, gender-sensitive international development organizations, fair trade garments and goods, laundry co-operatives, bulk-buying groups, microcredit enterprises.
d.. Take control of your pension plan if you have one, and make sure your money isn't going to the worst exploiters of workers.
Resources
This year, women in over 140 countries are organizing events which all together is being referred to the World March of Women 2000. The focus of the March is to raise awareness and promote action poverty and violence.
The Council of Canadians has resources on international trade agreements and structures, and how to get involved in action campaigns. Public Citizen Global Tradewatch is the main US-based organization for globalization and trade issues. Its web site contains a lot of information about the World Trade Organization, NAFTA, fair trade, and has an action page.
The Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women (CRIAW) recently published fact sheets on women and poverty, and violence against women and girls, and also has a fact sheet on women and globalization. CRIAW's report on the impact of home care policies and practices on women's vulnerability to poverty is also available on the net. The report contains a long list of recommendations to help alleviate the poverty of women due to the undervaluing of care work.
If I leave you with any one message today, it's that things are bad, but they can improve. It's a long, hard struggle. We can help bring a more ethical perspective to the issue of poverty and globalization. In fact, we must.
Internet resources:
World March of Women for the Year 2000
www.canada.marchofwomen.org<http://www.canada.marchofwomen.org/>
Women, Globalization and Trade
www.ifias.ca/GSD/trade/glob.html<http://www.ifias.ca/GSD/trade/glob.html>
Council of Canadians
www.canadians.org<http://www.canadians.org/>
Public Citizen Global Trade Watch (U.S.)
www.tradewatch.org<http://www.tradewatch.org/>
National Action Committee on the Status of Women
www.nac-cca.ca<http://www.nac-cca.ca/>
Women Watch (United Nations)
www.un.org/womenwatch<http://www.un.org/womenwatch>
Global Action Against Poverty
www.incommon.web.net<http://www.incommon.web.net/>
Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women
www.criaw-icref.ca<http://www.criaw-icref.ca/>
Endnotes
1. Statistics Canada. Women in Canada: A Statistical Report (Third Edition) Ottawa: Minister of Industry, 1995.
2. National Council of Welfare, Poverty Profile 1980-1990 (Ottawa, 1992), p. 56.
3. See National Forum on Health, Canada Health Action: Building on the Legacy (Ottawa: Minister of Public Works and Government Services, 1997); Robert Chernomas, The Social and Economic Causes of Disease ( Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, 1999); Agnieszka Kosny, "The Social Determinants of Health - Equity Across the Lifespan" Synthesis paper prepared for the Made to Measure Symposium. (Halifax: Maritime Centre of Excellence for Women's Health, 1999)
4. National Crime Prevention Council of Canada. Offender Profiles. Ottawa: NCPCC, 1995.
5. Statistics Canada, 1995.
6. Statistics Canada, 1995.
7. Statistics Canada, "1996 Census: Labour Force Activity, Occupation and Industry, Place of Work, Mode of Transportation to Work, Unpaid Work," The Daily, March 17, 1998.
8. Statistics Canada. As Time Goes By: Time Use of Canadians. Ottawa: Minister of Industry, 1995.
9. Statistics Canada, Women in Canada: A Statistical Report (Third edition) (Ottawa: Minister of Industry, 1995)
10. Marika Morris, Jane Robinson, Janet Simpson, Sherry Galey, Sandra Kirby, Lise Martin, and Martha Muzychka, The Changing Nature of Home Care and its Impact on Women's Vulnerability to Poverty (Ottawa: Status of Women Canada, 1999)
11. Statistics Canada, Women in Canada: A Statistical Report (Third edition) (Ottawa: Minister of Industry, 1995)
12. Statistics Canada, "Unpaid Work of Households", The Daily. December 20, 1995
13. Harvey Krahn, "Non-Standard Work on the Rise," Perspectives on Labour and Income, Winter 1995, pp.35-42.
14. Statistics Canada, 1998.
15. Statistics Canada, Earnings of Men and Women 1994 (Ottawa: Minister of Industry, 1995) pp42-43.
16. Alberta Status of Women, Women Against Poverty: A Report of the Alberta Status of Women Action Committee (Edmonton: Alberta Status of Women Action Committee, 1989), pp. 5, 7.
17. J.S. House, K.R. Landis and D. Umberson, Social Relationships and Health, Science, 241: 540-545, 1988; S. Cohen, Psychosocial models of the role of social support in the etiology of physical disease, Health Psychology 7: 269-297, 1988; J.A. Kulik and H.I.M. Mahler, Social Support and Recovery from Surgery, Health Psychology, 8: 221-238, 1989; A.F. Fontana, R.D. Kerns, R.L. Rosenberg and K.L. Coloese, Support, stress, and recovery from coronary heart disease: A longitudinal causal model, Health Psychology 8: 175-193, 1989; R.S. Baron, C.E. Cutrona, D. Hicklin, D.W. Russell and D.M. Lubaroff, Social support and immune responses among spouses of cancer patients, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59: 344-353, 1990.
18. Morris, 1999.
19. 1997 data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD in Figures. (Paris: OECD, 1999)
20. Canadian Labour Congress, Analysis of UI Coverage for Women (Ottawa: CLC, 2000)
21. CLC, 2000.
22. CLC, 2000.
23. Marika Morris, The Other Side of the Story: A feminist critique of Canada's national response to the UN questionnaire on the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action (Ottawa: Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action, 1999)
24. OECD, 1999.
25. Hon. Paul Martin, "Budget Speech". Presented to the House of Commons, February 28, 2000.
26. Center for Health Program Studies, Harvard Medical School/The Cambridge Hospital, For Our Patients, Not for Profits: A Call to Action, Chartbook and Slideshow 1998 Edition (Cambridge, Mass.: CHPS, 1998) p. 118, as cited in Canadian Health Coalition, The corporate threat to Canada's health care system, fact sheet posted at http://www.healthcoalition.ca/privatization.html.
27. Morris, Robinson, Simpson, et al., 1999.
28. Statistics Canada, "Brain drain and brain gain: The migration of knowledge workers into and out of Canada", The Daily, May 24, 2000.
29. Data is for children under 6, from National Center for Children in Poverty (Joseph L. Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University), "Young Children in Poverty Fact Sheet" (New York: NCCP, July 1999)
30. 1997 data from US Bureau of the Census: Household Economic Studies. Table 146: Persons without health care coverage by geographic division and State: United States selected years 1987-97. Posted at National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Fastats A-Z, Health Insurance Coverage: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/pdf/hu99t146.pdf
31. "In 1996, African American and Hispanic children were four times more likely to live in poverty than White children.... Low-income minority children face a disproportionate array of problems, including low birth weight, contagious diseases, and childhood injury and death. Thus, these children are at greater risk for developmental delays and social/emotional and behavioral problems." From Early Antecedents of Child Health and Adverse Behaviors section, Health Disparities: Bridging the Gap
-Working Draft- (US) National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Health Disparities Strategic Plan (Draft) Posted at: http://www.nichd.nih.gov/strategicplan/disparities/plan.htm
32. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD in Figures (Paris: OECD, 1999) Health status table available at: www.oecd.org/publications/figures/1999/E_10-11_Health_Status.pdf
33. United Nations Human Development Programme, Human Development Indicators. (New York: United Nations, 1999) Monitoring Human Development: Enlarging People's Choices, Table 5: Human poverty in industrialized countries, p. 149
34. See Chapter 3: The Invisible Heart - Care and the Global Economy in United Nations, Globalization with a Human Face: Human Development Report 1999 (New York: United Nations Development Programme, 2000)
35. Public Citizen Global Trade Watch, Another Broken NAFTA Promise: Challenge by U.S. Corporation Leads Canada to Repeal Public Health Law: www.citizen.org/pctrade/nafta/cases/ethyl.htm February 2000.
36. Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke, A WTO Primer: An activists' guide to the World Trade Organization (Ottawa: Council of Canadians, 1999)
37. A partial list of international human rights/social development agreements signed by Canada:
Beijing Platform for Action (gender equality) - 1995
Copenhagen Summit on Social Development - 1995
Cairo Programme on Population and Development -1994
Rio Declaration on the Environment and Development - 1992
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women - 1979
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights - 1966
International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination - 1966
Universal Declaration of Human Rights -1948
The International Labour Organization is a tripartite structure (made up of representatives of business, labour, and government of member countries) founded in 1919. There are international agreements on:
a.. the right of association
b.. 8 hour work day
c.. a weekly rest period
d.. equal pay for work of equal value
e.. prohibition of child labour
38. Heather Gibb, Gender Front and Centre: An APEC Primer (Ottawa: North-South Institute, 1997)
39. Marjorie Griffin Cohen, Laurell Ritchie, Michelle Swenarchuk, and Leah Vosko, "Globalization: Some Implications and Strategies for Women" (Toronto: National Action Committee on the Status of Women, 1998)
-3o- Things have not gotten better since "this Presentation" was presented.
Tuitio ad servitium pauperum -- Breath & Shadow:
"Canada is not a country for the cold of heart or the cold of feet." ~ Pierre Elliot Trudeau.
"Those who do not feel pain much, seldom think that it is felt. And yes, to wipe all tears from all faces is a task too hard for mortals; but to alleviate misfortunes is often within the most limited power: yet the opportunities which every day affords of relieving the most wretched of human beings are overlooked and neglected with equal disregard of policy and goodness."
~ Samuel Johnson.
"La noblesse est soutenue au coeur -- Faire l'amour à la vie et le revel dans son esprit." ~François-Marie Arouet de Voltaire.
Live to make civil society every day -- Ne lache pas!
http://www.bluenote.com<http://www.bluenote.com/>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://list.web.net/lists/private/homeles_ot-l/attachments/20080229/5b9f2f9c/attachment-0001.htm
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/gif
Size: 7297 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://list.web.net/lists/private/homeles_ot-l/attachments/20080229/5b9f2f9c/attachment-0001.gif
More information about the homeles_ot-l
mailing list