Table 20 indicates that:

• the unemployment rate, official plus hidden, shows a greater increase for women than for men when compared to the official rates. The increase is greatest for adult women and least for young men.

• when the two rates are combined, the unemployment rate for young women is higher than that for young men.

• when the two rates are combined, the unemployment rate for women is almost 60% greater for women when compared to that for men.

• the official rates show that women's unemployment is only 10% greater than that for men.

When studying the figures showing seasonal unemployment, almost all the seasonal variation in the hidden unemployed is among men. This suggests that men give up looking for work for the same reasons that women do all year round -- they know there are no jobs to be found. Although they disappear from the official unemployment figures because of seasonal adjustments, they are nonetheless unemployed.

There is a constant emphasis, in discussions of unemployment, on heads of families, as if all of them were men; and a put-down to "spouses, single sons and daughters, and other relatives living in the family unit".

"... the Globe and Mail commented editorially a few months ago: 'Only two fifths of the record 889,000 unemployed in January were heads of families or single people living alone. The rest were secondary earners living at home. We are giving far too much of the unemployment insurance pool to casual workers (meaning young people and women) who do not intend to hold steady jobs. And in doing so, we jeopardize the security of genuine workers"

The 1977 budget of the Province of Ontario contained a paper on the "Changing character of unemployment in Ontario". Among its suggestions was one to divide the labour force into primary workers -- men between 25 and 54 years of age; and secondary workers -- everyone else. Since the "secondary" labour force has increased much faster than the number of "prime-aged males", the paper contended that it was "essential to re-define the high employment norm, that is, the level of unemployment which would exist even if the economy were operating at full capacity". What the paper says in effect is that the economy can operate at full capacity without finding a job for everyone who wants one. The paper also proposes that full employment be re-defined as occurring when there is 5.3% unemployment -- not including the hidden unemployment rate. By this method, the Ontario government proposes to deal with the problem of unemployment by defining it out of existence and then turning its attention to the problem of the unemployed demanding more than they deserve or need.

"In June 1977, only 34% of the 814,000 unemployed were heads of families or single people living alone. Also 40,000 of the 188,000 families whose heads were unemployed had at least one other so-called secondary income earner working."