Comment:

Table 6 indicates that the participation rate increases as the educational attainment level increases for both men and women; and that the unemployment rates decline. A university education has a larger effect on the unemployment rates for men than it has for women. Note that the unemployment rates for women are greater than those for men in all educational groups.

Up to the end of 1975, subjects in the worthy labour force survey were asked:

"What did (this' person) do mostly last week?" and "Did (this person) do anything else last week?"

Many women chose to give a socially-acceptable answer -- "keeping house" -- rather than a more realistic answer -- "unemployed and looking for work"

After 1976 subjects were asked:

"Did (this person) do any work at all last week (not counting work around the house) ?" and

"In the past 4 weeks has (this person) looked for another job?"

These questions appear to provide more realistic data about unemployed women. The unemployment rate for women in 1975 was 6.4%. The rate for 1976 was 8.4%. At the same time the unemployment rate for men increased from 6.2% in 1975 to 6.4% in 1976.

The data gathered on participation rates and unemployment rates through the labour force survey is different from the data gathered by the census. (Please refer to tables 7 and 8 for the 1976 Census data). Since the Census is taken on June 1st, 1976, the labour force survey data which is most likely to be comparable would be for May 1976. In these statistics, the participation rate for women was calculated as 44.9% for women (as compared to 45.0% from the Census) and 8.1% unemployed (as compared to 8.4% from the Census). Other discrepancies are:

-the census calculates lower participation rates for most educational groups except the university level group for whom the rate is much higher.

- the census calculates higher participation rates for women over 45 years

- the census calculates lower unemployment rates for all educational groups except the university group for whom the rate is much higher.

- the census calculates unemployment rates for age groups which are different from those of the labour force survey but in no specific pattern, some are higher, some are lower.