TABLE 17 shows the impact of having a husband and children in the home on women's workforce participation in 1985. Note that:

• As FIGURE 14 showed, the older her children, the more likely the mother is to work.
  
  
• This TABLE also indicates that, whatever the age of their children, the women who are least likely to work are those who are married but whose husband is unemployed. It can be speculated that the social "norm" that a woman should not be supporting her husband works, to some extent, against even the economic necessity of supporting a family. Thus, women free from this norm (either those who have employed husbands, or who have no husband) are more likely to work than women whose husbands are unemployed.

TABLE 17

EFFECT OF CHILDREN AND PRESENCE OF PARTNER ON LABOUR FORCE
PARTICIPATION OF WOMEN
1985

% of women who are in labor force

Source: Statistics Canada. The Labor Force Survey (Monthly) #71-001.

FIGURE 15 indicates a unique aspect of women's labor force participation: the increase in part-time work. Note that:

• While women's participation in the labor force has increased from 45% in 1976 to 55% in 1985, their participation in full-time employment has increased by only three percentage points (from 33% in 1976 to 36% in 1985). A much greater increase has occurred in part-time employment (up six percentage points from 8% in 1976 to 14% in 1985).

Given the prevalence of part-time employment for women, it is disturbing to note how few part-time workers are compensated at the same rate as full-time workers or are provided with adequate benefits. Lower wages and lack of benefits severely disadvantage women both while they are working and at retirement, when they will have correspondingly lower pensions on which to live. Unless this cycle is broken, today's poorly compensated women will comprise the majority of people who will live in poverty in their later years.