Unemployment Insurance Bias Against Women

From the Business section of the Toronto Star, Tuesday, November 22,2007, page B8, an article about the inherent bias against women in Canada's Unemployment Insurance (EI) system:

EI STRUCTURE BIASED AGAINST WOMEN, STUDY FINDS

Canadian women are being unfairly shortchanged by the country's Employment Insurance system, which was made more restrictive a deade ago and now boasts a $51 billon surplus, a recent study concludes.

The study for the left-leaning Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, to be released today, finds the qualification requirements for EI have left many women who lose their jobs out of pocket, despite having paid their fair share of premiums.

In fact, the study finds as many as two in three working women who pay into EI don't receive a penny in benefits if they lost their jobs.

"Because so few of them qualify, they're subsidizing the benefits for men, who are more likely to qualify, and that doesn't seem fair," study co-author Monica Townson said in an interview.

Statistics Canada data show that 40 per cent of unemployed men received EI benefits in 2004. For women, the figure was only 32 per cent.

"The rules seem to be based on the standard male job of full-time, full year," Townson said.

"A lot of women are in non-standard jobs - part-time, temporary work, contract work and that kind of thing - so it's very difficult for them to get the hours in a lot of those cases."

Because of their child-rearing and family responsibility roles, women are required to take prolonged periods of time out of the workforce, something men usually don't.

When a woman does return to work after a few years, she is required to re-qualify for EI from scratch by working at least 910 hours in the most recent 52-week period.

"It doesn't take account of the fact that women have to be out of the workforce for periods to look after their children and that may make it harder for them to qualify for benefits," Townson said.

The report recommends taking a longer-term view to determine eligibility. "A longer-term perspective would help women in the patterns that (women) have of paid and unpaid work," Townson said.
The Canadian Press