Across Canada, families with young children struggle to make ends meet due to rising child care costs. This struggle is particularly pronounced for women: lack of affordable, accessible and quality child care is the biggest contributor to the gap between men’s and women’s labour force participation and to the gender wage gap, and disproportionately affects women living in poverty. The government has made some incremental progress toward an affordable, accessible, inclusive and high-quality child care system. However, greater leadership and investment is needed in order to move towards an early learning and child care system that supports all families in Canada, and ensures decent working conditions for caregivers.
Access to additional weeks of Employment Insurance for a second parent after the birth or adoption of a child is a welcome change in 2019, as paternity leave plays an important role in redistributing unpaid care work in the household. Women make up two-thirds of the paid care workforce, in jobs like child care and domestic work that are often poorly paid, provide scant benefits, impose irregular hours and can take a physical and emotional toll. Racialized immigrant and migrant women, including non-status workers, fill the labour shortages in the care sector. With domestic workers at such high risk of exploitation, Canada should ratify the International Labour Organization Convention 189 on the protection of domestic workers.
