None of these alternative explanations are new. The Fédération des Femmes du Québec, at its convention in 1977 voted against a recommendation to restrict the extension of part-time jobs even though all agreed that part-time jobs require few qualifications, offer low salaries and provide inferior working conditions.¹ The delegates to the meeting felt that the availability of part-time jobs provides a short-term solution to the problems facing many women with immediate needs. For such women, part-time provide for family responsibilities and financial necessities, as well as providing an avenue back into the labour force. The convention, therefore, agreed to accept short-term inconveniences while at the same time pressing for long-term solutions to the shortage of essential support services such as day care, maternity leave, unstereotyped training for women and so on. It appears that women workers, particularly those who are members of unions, are caught between the disadvantages and disapproval involved in part-time work and current demands for reduction in the work week. All of us may soon be working fewer than 30 hours per week, the current definition of part-time work.

12. In a recent article by Ian Morrison, Executive Director of the Canadian Association for Adult Education, he states that:

"In its desire to obtain maximum dollar effectiveness for training funds the Commission appears to wish to recruit those persons whose needs for training are lesser, and who would probably fend best if left to their own devices, and to turn its back on those in greatest need. This is one way to assure a better return on investment, but only in a perverse sense. By reducing its risks and catering to those 'clients' whose training problems are least challenging, the Commission may respond to its limited objective within the federal program planning system. But somewhere the dissonance between the narrow objective of the present program and the government's own overall objectives must be recognized and met."²

^1. L. Aubert, "Part-time work", in the Status of Women News, September, 1978, p.19.

^2. I. Morrison, "Manpower policy stumbles into the 1980s", in Perception, March, 1978, pp. 21 - 23.