There was an item in Wednesday's Globe and Mail on some of the consequences of increased female participation in the Canadian labour force. The article is based on a recently released Statistics Canada study. Among other points, it states that "Canadian women are shoring up the financial well-being of their families, and without their incomes more than half a million families would fall into poverty"; that "... the number of wives who earned more than their husbands increased in 1995"; that "more families are relying on a single salary - the woman's - to maintain home and hearth"; that "Women were the sole breadwinners in about 5 per cent, or 344,000, husband-wife families in 1995 - a scenario that's gradually become more prevalent since 1967 (when the figure was 1 per cent of husband-wife couples). It was said to be "linked to the recent trend of early retirement among men". The article also said that "when both partners (husband and wife or common- law spouses) brought home a pay cheque, the likelihood that their family income fell below the poverty line 'decreased dramatically'". In a posting to this list a long time ago, I pointed to the dramatic increase by women in the Canadian labour force. From the arithmetic I did at the time, I concluded that if, during the past two and a half decades, the female participation rate had remained the same as it had been in 1970, there would be no scarcity of jobs in Canada. At the time I recall speculating that a major reason for increased female participation was "social change" - i.e., it had become acceptable for women to become educated and work. The Statscan study referred to in the G&M article suggests another reason - necessity. Women simply have to go out and work if a family is going maintain a reasonable standard of living. In an increasing number of cases, wives must work because their husbands are not doing so. The article gives rise to a number of thoughts which, while speculative, might be worth pondering. One is that women, on average, are paid less than men. If I were an employer and were offering a number of jobs that either men or women could do, I would try to cut my costs by hiring women. I wonder about the extent to which such strategy is being used by employers who are not affected or particularly bothered by employment equity legislation? I also wonder about the effect it may be having on family income. Another thought concerns whether and how the diminishment of mens' roles in the labour force might foster family violence. Like it or not, western culture has emphasized that it is a man's role to earn the bread and a woman's to keep the home. What we now have is a dramatic erosion of this tradition. A few years ago, in a study I did of Aboriginal communities in northern Saskatchewan, I encountered situations in which men's roles had been reduced from self-reliant hunter, trapper and fisherman to welfare dependent indigent. Violence, including family violence, had increased to near blood-bath levels, particularly when the welfare checks came in. I wonder if something like this isn't creeping into our own society, slowly but surely. Ed Weick
