The COVID-19 crisis has exposed long-standing inequalities in unpaid and paid care work – women and girls undertake more than three-quarters of unpaid care work in the world and make up two-thirds of the paid care workforce, according to Oxfam. In Canada, women are disproportionately shouldering the impacts of lockdowns, childcare closures, and overwhelmed health care systems as they “account[ed] for 63% of the one million jobs lost in the early stages of the pandemic…and concentrated in industries hit hardest by economic shutdowns,” all while balancing their participation in the paid workforce with heightened care responsibilities. According to an OCED 2020 Risks that Matter survey, mothers have taken on “additional unpaid care work and, correspondingly, they [have] experienced labour market penalties and stress”. What the pandemic has exposed is that care work is not only an essential pillar of society but continues to remain exceedingly undervalued. With women accounting for a majority of frontline workers, and care work being pushed out of the formal economy into the home, the pandemic has exacerbated the gender pay gap.
Join us on Wednesday, March 30th @ 1pm (EST), for a virtual panel discussion moderated by Commissioner and CAO of the Pay Equity Commission of Ontario, Kadie Ward, and joined by leading pay equity experts and care work advocates.