FEWO Committee Report

SUPPLEMENTARY OPINION NEW DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF CANADA

We are happy that the Standing Committee on the Status of Women has used some of its valuable time to shine a light on unpaid care work and its massive impacts on women and the fight to achieve gender equality. We also would like to thank the witnesses for participating in this study, and to the Library of Parliament analysts for putting together an excellent report.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed what has been broken for too long and it is time we rethink our approach to carework. Strong public care systems – whether health care, childcare, long term care or care services for persons with disabilities – are central to the well-being of individuals, families, and communities.

Gender stereotypes and gender roles are deeply ingrained, and they're systemic. It's not just about individual families and who does the cooking, garbage or laundry; the impact of this unequal burden is also reflected in wage rates, labour market participation, lifetime earnings and career progression.

Around the world, women spend two to ten times more time on unpaid care work than men.

This unequal distribution of caring responsibilities is linked to discriminatory social institutions

and stereotypes on gender roles. Gender inequality in unpaid care work is the missing link in the analysis of gender gaps in labour outcomes, such as labour force participation, wages, and job quality.

In this report, we wish to echo the call for Government of Canada to establish a Care Economy Commission. The Commission should have a mandate to study, design and implement a care strategy for Canada that would create a broad and inclusive labour market strategy to achieve high-quality, equitable care jobs; examine paid and unpaid care work and develop a road map to meet the increasing demands for care; and reduce and redistribute women's unpaid care work by improving access to public care services for children, the elderly and people living with disabilities.

In 2018, the International Labour Organization (ILO) released an excellent study on care work and care jobs. It said, “No substantive progress can be achieved in reaching gender equality in the labour force until inequities in unpaid care work are tackled through the effective recognition, reduction and redistribution of unpaid care work between women and men, as well as between families and the state.”

 The ILO report sets out a “5R Framework for Decent Care Work” calling for policies to “recognize, reduce and redistribute unpaid care work; reward paid care work, by promoting more and decent work for care workers; and guarantee care workers' representation, social dialogue and collective bargaining”.

Each part of this framework includes a set of policy recommendations. A Care Economy Commission could examine how the 5R framework could be implemented in a Canadian context.

For many years, New Democrats have called for investment in public health and care services including mental health, childcare, early childhood education, elderly care and other social care services that serve all our communities. Canada's market-based approach to care and the off-loading of many care services to for-profit companies has driven down wages and working conditions on a workforce primarily comprised of women, and many of whom are racialized. This has a direct impact on the quality of care overall, something that was demonstrated in long-term care throughout this pandemic with tragic results.

It is our hope the government doesn’t allow this report and its recommendations to sit on a shelf like so many others have. Canadians need action in addressing unpaid care work, without it, true gender equality can not be achieved.