D. Necessity for women to fulfill family responsibilities.

Working mothers have two full-time jobs, and this is their greatest block to undertaking further training. There are simply no more hours in the day to accommodate study. As well quality, conveniently-located child care is usually unavailable during times when courses are offered, often the evening. Simple fatigue is also a major issue here.

E. Interrupted working life due to child bearing and child care.

Women hesitate to undertake retraining or further education when interruption due to sickness of a child or pregnancy may prevent successful completion.

F. Part-time employees are denied benefits and opportunities.

Seventy-three percent of all part-time employees are women, and they are currently denied many health, welfare and other benefits, including job security and union representation in many cases. Their average annual earnings are only $4,202. 41 Retraining and upgrading are also usually denied part-timers.

G. Lack of career path counselling.

It is unreasonable to expect women to overcome years of adverse conditioning to plunge, unaided, into career change and retraining. At the present time there is insufficient counseling and career development training available to women. The undereducated are especially in need of such counselling.

People with little education are more likely to regard anything new with apprehension and even distrust: not because they are not interested, but usually because they do not immediately recognize what it holds for them. It is this that gives the impression that they are less interested than those with a better education. 42

2. Positive Measures Which Must Be Undertaken to Overcome Barriers

The barriers enumerated above are only some of the formidable obstacles to women's achieving equity in training and education, and such discrimination against women will continue unless firm, committed and decisive action is taken by policy makers in their design of the Paid Skills Development Leave program.

Discrimination in education denies credentials to good jobs. Without an attempt to dismantle the structural discrimination which has been built into our educational and training systems, there is virtually no access for women to skills development. (The current female participation rate in all apprenticeships is less than 3%, for example.)


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