here. - Canadian Women's Health Network

Women, Income andHealth in Manitoba122.2 CANADIAN WOMEN AND POVERTYAs the above data show, there were 29,000more poor women in Manitoba than therewere poor men. To put this another way,40% of all poor adults in Manitoba were men;60% of them were women.As Monica Townson has stated:It’s not something we have heardmuch about recently. Yet womenremain among the poorest of the poorin Canada. Over the past two decades,the percentage of women living inpoverty has been climbing steadily.As Canada enters the 21st century,almost 19% of adult women are poor– the highest rate of women’s povertyin two decades. About 2.2 millionadult women are now counted aslow-income, compared with 1.8million who had low incomes in 1980. 4From 1976 to 1999, the percentage ofwomen 15 years of age and older whowere employed in the paid labour forceincreased from 42% to 54%. During thesame period of time, Manitoba womenincreased their employment rates from46% to 56.5% 5 . Were it not for theincreased earnings resulting from themassive increase in women’s labourmarket participation, many more familieswould have slipped into poverty.The National Council of Welfare hascalculated the poverty rates for husbandwifefamilies in 1996 and the percentage offamilies who would have been poor withoutthe earnings of the women in them. InManitoba, in 1996, 10.5% of husband-wifefamilies were poor. Without the earnings ofthe wives, 25.5% would have been poor. 6This illustrates several points. Firstly,marriage itself does not protect womenfrom poverty. Secondly, married women’searnings are crucial to the economicwell-being of their families.The gender gap in poverty in Canada hasbeen the subject of international discussion.Canada was recently criticized internationallyfor the extra burden of poverty borneby Canadian women. The United NationsCommittee on Human Rights, in itsConcluding Observations on Canada’sCompliance with the International Covenanton Civil and Political Rights, stated in part:The Committee is concernedthat many women have beendisproportionately affected bypoverty. In particular, the very highpoverty rate among single mothersleaves their children without theprotection to which they are entitledunder the Covenant. While thedelegations expressed a strongcommitment to address theseinequalities in Canadian society, theCommittee is concerned that many ofthe programme cuts in recent yearshave exacerbated these inequalitiesand harmed women and otherdisadvantaged groups. TheCommittee recommends a thoroughassessment of the impact of recentchanges in social programmes onwomen and that action be undertakento redress any discriminatory effectsof these changes. 7Much attention has been paid to theextremely high rates of poverty amongchildren of single-parent mothers. Childpoverty has become a topic of much publicdiscourse, including a 1989 resolution bythe House of Commons to eliminate childpoverty by 2000. Since 1990, the numberof poor children in Canada has actuallyincreased by 103,000. 8 As the NationalAction Committee on the Status ofWomen has consistently pointed out,the children of single-parent mothersare poor because their mothers are poor.Health Canada has established Centresof Excellence for Children’s Well-being.A February 1999 discussion paper entitledFostering Knowledge Development on the