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FIGURES 27 to 29 illustrate how increasing participation in
part-time work further disadvantages women. The fact that it is harder for
women to find full-time work exacerbates the disadvantage.
While comparable income information is difficult the following
comparisons have been made:
- Increase in yearly income from full- and part- time work
from 1976 to 1982 (FIGURE 27).
- Average hourly pay rates for full- and part- time employment
of women and men in 1981 and 1984 (FIGURE 28).
- Income of all employed women 15+ compared to that of men
from 1970 to 1984 (FIGURE 29).
Together, these FIGURES indicate:
- Yearly income from part-time work, especially among women,
increased faster from 1976 to 1983 than income from full-time work. If this
trend had continued, part-time workers would, eventually have been paid as much
as full-time workers (FIGURE 27).
- However, between 1981 and 1984 in terms of hourly wages,
these trends seem to be reversed. Men's full-time wages increased marginally
faster than women's full-time wages, although women's part-time wages increased
while men's part-time wages decreased. Women's full-time wages increased
slightly faster than women's part-time wages. Over time, this can only serve to
widen the wage gap between men and women and between part-time and full-time
work (FIGURE 28).
- The net result of women working part-time and for a lower
wage than is paid for full-time employment, is that the actual yearly income of
employed women has made little gain on men's comparative yearly income (e.g.,
women earned 49% of men's income in 1970, 55% in 1984, see FIGURE 29).
- In addition, women who work part-time have less bargaining
power than full-time workers. For example, in 1981, 35% of full-time female
workers were unionized compared to 15% of part-time female workers.
- Finally a number of other characteristics of part-time work
as it is practiced in Canada today, create further, indirect economic
disadvantages for part-time workers:
- 37% of part-time workers are
ineligible for unemployment insurance because they work less than the 15 hours
per week required**
- part-time workers are much less likely to
receive benefits, which are estimated to constitute 25% of the average
compensation of full-time workers*
- since part-time workers are only
half as likely as full-time workers to be covered under company pension plans,
part-time workers must also look forward to economic disadvantage throughout
their retirement years.
* Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women As Things
Stand, 1983.
** White. J. Women and Part-Time Work, 1983.
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