One coordinated initiative which our interviews considered to be important -- not so much for what it is, but for what it indicates about what might be in the future -- is recent work at the federal level regarding employment equity. Legislation is being supported by compliance regulations for major federal contractors. In turn, the restructured Skills Shortages program allows, in theory at least, for training to meet the vacancies created by the contract compliance requirements. This is a small effort and is fraught with shortcomings. Nevertheless, it is important because it demonstrates recognition that: a) principles of equality must be enshrined in legislation; b) mechanisms which are not voluntary must be put in place to support the legislation and the principle on which it is based; c) implementation of those mechanisms will result in social changes -- in this case, an increased demand for women to fill positions which traditionally would have been filled by men; d) government has a responsibility to assist Canadians to prepare for these changes -- for example, through training programs.

Evaluation of the outcomes of women's education and training for the purposes of this research has not been easy. Generally, it seems that education and training for women have done little to improve women's economic situation, although for any individual woman the single most significant correlative factor with high quality jobs is high levels of education and training. Clearly the situation is complex. Unfortunately, we were able to find very little systematic analysis of the relative importance of education and training in the equality equation. It is difficult to understand how policy-makers can proceed very far without that knowledge.

Information which does exist, however, shows that most government and private-sector sponsored training continues to direct women into relatively low-quality areas of work. At the program level and for the individual women involved this is, perhaps, acceptable. For most women, marginal improvements in their employment position are better than no improvements at all. A job for a few years, part-time work, or moving from minimum wage to a slightly better-paid job are not ideal outcomes of training but, may be acceptable.

At the level of public policy, however, such outcomes are clearly unacceptable. Given the enormity of the changes necessary to achieve the equality for women to which Canada is in principle committed and the acknowledged role of training in reaching those goals, the number of government dollars available across the country for women's training is horrifyingly inadequate (47). To use those few resources to train women for jobs which are of low quality is to create outcomes which certainly do nothing to improve women's situation and which may actually contribute to deterioration in the long-term. By creating more workers for whom the only suitable jobs are in the low-wage periphery, public policy only serves to ensure that the high-wage core will be small and inaccessible to most of Canada's job-seekers. There are pathways which lead from poverty, illiteracy and low education levels to secure well-paying jobs. It is the clear responsibility of public policy to ensure that scarce government training dollars are used to assist women to find and follow those pathways. It is also the clear responsibility of economic policy to ensure that there are more, rather than fewer of those pathways to choose from. It is neither desirable nor necessary to assume that the disappearing middle class is an inevitable outcome in the movement into the 'next' economy.