It’s a phrase that tends to predominate throughout reports, studies and articles dealing with the general topic applying to a large segment of Canadian population: women in poverty.

Researcher Monica Townson  has published a recent report on the impact of the recession as it  affected women, released by the Canadian Council for Policy Alternatives. But she recognizes her latest research project has a lengthy shelf-life.

She also lays much of the blame for the deplorable economic condition of many Canadian women at the feet of the federal government that  appears determined to sweep the issue under the carpet and ensure that there is little opportunity for the issue to become part of the national consciousness.

“It’s almost like the government doesn’t want to know about inequalities anymore,” Townson told Diversity!, “and certainly it isn’t prepared to address them.”

In her report, Townson documents some of the inequities that have victimized women in the workforce – as well as those no longer working – ranging from lack of equal pay for equal work to the impact of inflation as it affects those women forced to rely on social programs.

And, while much public and government attention has focused on the issue of child poverty, there appears to be a total lack of recognition on the plight of women who barely survive in a state of chronic poverty. Almost a quarter of single parents are poor and at least 14 percent of single older women are poor.

Generally for women, poverty stems from a number of factors. Women account for 60 percent of minimum wage workers, with minimum wages in all provinces at less than $10 an hour.

Other factors include the hours of work women often must accept. Even when working full-time, they can’t put in the number of hours that men do because of their family situations. Rarely can they accept overtime or weekend work. Then there are the types of jobs imposed on women, Townson points out, “like service-sector work and working for small companies that don’t pay very well.”

As many as 40 percent of women’s jobs are considered non-standard work – part-time, temporary, contract, casual or a combination—just  to make ends meet.

“These are the kinds of jobs that don’t pay well, they’re very unstable, have no job security and don’t have any benefits or pensions, so that puts them even farther behind,” Townson explains. “There were steps being taken to address those issues, but since the current government came in, it has reversed a lot of those policies.”

Lack of child care also puts even greater pressure on women, in terms of  what employment they can accept.

“We were going to have a national system of early learning and child care, which the previous government negotiated with all the provinces,” Townson adds. “But when the Harper government came in, they cancelled it immediately.Most women find it difficult to find child care and that limits their choices in the paid workforce.”

Compounding those challenges, women who can’t find work or lose their jobs are also discriminated against by the system when it comes to social assistance and in Employment Insurance. Welfare rates in most provinces, she says, are far lower than the poverty and rarely adjusted for inflation, which can reduce a woman’s disposable income. For instance, by as much as $5,900 for a female parent with one child in Ontario alone between 1994 and 2006.

As for Employment Insurance, women are unlikely to qualify for benefits to begin with because the system is based on hours of work, which tend to be less than men. Currently only 39 percent of women can now qualify for EI.

Townson has a longer lists of actions taken by the Harper government that have undermined efforts to improve the condition of women living in poverty in Canada, not the least among them slashing funding for research organizations that pursued the issue.

The present government has ruled that pay equity issues affecting the federal public service now must be dealt with in the collective bargaining process, rather than the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Funding for research and advocacy groups such as Status of Women Canada has been eliminated, along with the Court Challenges program, which could put forward equality issues under the Charter of Rights.

Many of the reports of Status of Women Canada, she adds, have even been eliminated from its web site.

“So people who want to know what the situation is are denied access to that knowledge,” she says. “It’s abolished almost all the organizations that were documenting inequalities in women’s situations. There were steps being taken to address those issues, but since the current government came in, it has reversed a lot of the progress.”

The Royal Commission on the Status of Woman has also been abolished.

There’s still hope, Townson says, though she agrees, “there’s no magic bullet.” Her report proposes some answers:

• Change the Employment Insurance program to provide equality of access to women and men and to address the problems outlined in this report.
• Increase the minimum wages to at least $10 an hour, and index them for inflation.
• Address the income needs of older women on their own by increasing the Guaranteed Income Supplement for single individuals.
• Review social assistance rates and bring them at least up to the after-tax LICO for lone parents and others.
• Give special attention to the income needs — and especially the retirement income needs — of certain groups such as persons with disabilities, Aboriginals, Canadians from racialized communities, and recent immigrants.
• Restore the funding and structure agreed between the federal and the provincial governments  for a national system of early learning and child care.
• Develop strategies to address non-standard work issues — for example, regulating temporary employment agencies.
• Ensure policies and programs respect and promote women’s economic autonomy.

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For the complete report by Monica Townson on women in poverty: (click here)

Monica Townson’s report: Women’s Poverty and the Recession also can be found at the CCPA website: http://policyalternatives.ca