The Uncounted Hours: The Perception of Women in
Policy Formulation
S. June Menzies*
I. Introduction
The Speech from the Throne opening the Second Session of the
29th Parliament (February 27, 1974) announced the government’s
objective of creating a society free from discrimination.’ This is an
elusive goal, particularly where one is aiming at a society free from
discrimination on the basis of sex. In 1970 the Royal Commission on
the Status of Women made one hundred and sixty-five recommenda-
tions for action in Canada to help achieve this end.2 In the five
years which have elapsed, approximately one-third of the one hundred
and twenty-two recommendations put before the federal government
have been enacted.3
During the summer of 1975, three separate bills were before the
House of Commons which if all enacted would significantly improve
the record of government action. One has already been passed4 and
the other two await enactment.5 Also promised is a federal human
rights commission which will make equal employment opportunities
in agencies under federal jurisdiction mandatory.6 When all these
steps have been taken, it is felt by many that the government will
have done as much as it can at this stage to promote equality, and
that it will then be up to the community at large, and feminists in
particular, to create the changes in attitude that alone can make
equality a reality.
But a government’s responsibilities cannot be fulfilled so easily.
We need much more than a change in attitude – we need a new
perception of the role of women as unpaid workers and the inter-
* Vice Chairperson, Advisory Council on the Status of Women.
1 House of Commons Debates, 2d Sess., 29th Parl., vol.1, 1, 3.
2Report of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada (1970).
3 Advisory Council on the Status of Women, What’s Been Done (1974).
4 Statute Law (Status of Women) Amendment Act, 1974, S.C. 1974-75, c.66.
GAn Act Respecting Citizenship, Bill C-20, 1st Sess., 30th Parl., 1974
(1st
reading Oct. 10, 1974); Statute Law (Superannuation) Amendment Act, Bill C-52,
1st Sess., 30th Pan., 1975 (1st reading Feb. 15, 1975).
6The Canadian Human Rights Act, Bill C-72, 1st Sess., 30th Pan., 1975 (1st
reading July 31, 1975).
McGILL LAW JOURNAL
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dependence between that role and the economy. Changes in attitude
will follow the recognition of this interrelationship much more
naturally than they will precede it and the government has a direct
and crucial responsibility for developing such recognition.
The legislative changes to date have remedied only the most direct
and blatant discrimination against women. None of the legislation
so far and little of the public debate have dealt perceptively with
the economic consequences of performing the role of housewife and
mother –
a role still essential to the continuation of the quality of
life of our society. This assertion is not made in disregard of the
debate across the country about the property rights of wives. Those
discussions are concentrated around the right of women to be re-
cognized as partners in marriage even though they do not contribute
as much money to the matrimonial unit as do their husbands. In
spite of this unequal financial contribution, it is being asserted that
women have a right to an equal share of the profits and security
built up during the union.’ It is the husband who is being asked to
share and the objective is to create a private equity between husband
and wife.
The debate we have not yet entered concerns the parallel right
of women to full economic equality in society itself, even though they
are not permanently attached to the labour force or their attachment
is interrupted. As noted above, the relationship between the unpaid
work- women do and the society which benefits from it is one of
interdependence although our social and taxation policies do not yet
reflect it. In the same way that we are beginning to understand that
the non-financial contribution of the woman should create economic
rights for her within the marriage, so We must recognize that this
same contribution should create economic rights in the society.
Ultimately the society is as dependent on her unpaid work as is the
‘family, and a recognition of this interdependence seems crucial to
the development of social and taxation policies appropriate to a
society free from discrimination.
7 Paltiel, The Family and Social Policy, notes for a panel discussion at the
Conference on the Economic Position of the Woman in the Family held
by -the Manitoba Action Committee on the Status of Women, Winnipeg,
Manitoba, April 26-28, 1974.
8 See the Law Reform Commission of Canada, Family Property (1975), Work-
ing Paper No.8. See also, the various provincial law reform commission
reports on family law and the Advisory Council on the Status of Women,
Rioux, Background Notes on Matrimonial Property Rights (1974).
9 Galbraith, Economics and the Public Purpose (1973), 33; see, infra, Part IV.
1975] THE PERCEPTION OF WOMEN IN POLICY FORMULATION
617
II. Women and Social Policy: Fair in Form but Discriminatory in
Practice
Recent amendments to the Canada Pension Plan10 illustrate both
the progress made in eliminating discrimination against women, and
the inequalities that still exist because public policy does not take
cognizance of the connection between the unpaid work of women
and the economy.1a
Equal Treatment for Female Workers’ Dependents
One amendment to the Canada Pension Plan effective January 1,
1975, provides benefits for the surviving spouse and children of a
deceased or disabled female contributor under the same conditions
as the surviving spouse and children of a male contributor.” This
change reflects acceptance of the fact that men may need protection
just as much as women, and that the replacement of the mother’s
income may be equally important to a family as the replacement of
the father’s income.12
The change demonstrates a new awareness in our society of the
economic responsibilities of the paid woman worker towards her
1o An Act to amend the Pension Act, S.C. 1973-74, c.19 and An Act to amend
the Canada Pension Plan, S.C. 1974-75, c.4.
1oa The proposal to admit housewives to the Canada Pension Plan made by
the Federal Minister of Health, the Advisory Council on the Status of Women
and the Advisory Committee to the Canada Pension Plan, by splitting pension
credits between spouses, would allow women much more equity than they
now enjoy and-is an urgent and necessary step to achieve economic equality
within the marriage. But it is a recognition of the husband’s responsibility
to share the wife’s loss in social security benefits when she withdraws from
the paid labour market; it is not a recognition of society’s responsibility to
extend security to women because they have earned it.
Pressure must be mounted to implement the pension splitting proposal
between spouses. The principle of equity and interdependence within the
marriage unit has not yet been achieved. Pension splitting would bring it closer.
Advocates of economic recognition of womens’ contribution through unpaid
work would do a great disservice to women if they campaigned against
“splitting” in an effort to achieve full economic recognition. The two concepts
are not alternatives. Both are necessary to economic equity. One accomplishes
equity within the marriage unit, and reflects the economic interdependence
between spouses; the other accomplishes equity within the larger economy
and reflects the economic interdependence between the unpaid work of
women and the economy.
11 An Act to amend the Canada Pension Plan, S.C. 1974-75, c.4, s25.
12 65% of husband/wife families in Canada receive income from both husband
and wife. In 34% the husband is the only breadwinner; Statistics Canada,
Income Distribution by Size in Canada, 1972, Cat. 13-207, Annual, August 1974, 32.
McGILL LAW JOURNAL
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dependents. In other words, as long as women carry the same finan-
cial responsibilities as men, those responsibilities are recognized.
But beyond that we do not go. We do not yet acknowledge that the
responsibilities of the unpaid woman worker towards her dependents
have economic dimensions, and are still far short of an understand-
ing of the role of women as wives and mothers from an economic
perspective. We shall briefly examine this role below in Part IV.
15% Drop Out Period: Uneven Impact on Women
The failure to grasp the economic significance of the work women
do at home results in discrimination in other provisions of the
Canada Pension Plan. Pensions are based on length of service, so they
reflect interruptions in employment due to women’s responsibilities
in the home. After a ten-year qualifying period, the Plan provides
that 15% of the contribution period (hereinafter referred to as the
“drop out” period), will not be counted in calculating the pension.13
This will normally result in a larger pension since it will be calculated
on the 85% period of highest earnings. This 15% drop out is likely
to be sufficient to allow for periods of lowest earnings, unemploy-
ment, training, and retraining for most men since the male employ-
ment pattern is one of steady attachment to the labour force; but
most women do not fit this pattern.
Female work patterns are much more varied. Most women have
extended periods of family responsibilities that interfere with their
steady attachment to the labour force. The work performed during
their years out of the labour force is likely to be onerous to them and
productive to the economy, yet it constitutes labour that not only
does not contribute to their independent security, but that actually
inhibits their ability to achieve security for the future. The uncounted
15% of pensionable years after the first ten which is allowed to all
workers will not be sufficient to cover years of low or no earnings
due to the necessity of running a home and caring for children, and
consequently a woman’s pension will be reduced significantly.
Equitable treatment for women would take into account this unpaid
work.
Test of Recency: Uneven Impact on Women
Further discrimination in practice which arises out of the applica-
tion of the Canada Pension Plan results from the tests for eligibility
13 Canada Pension Plan, R.S.C. 1970, c.C-5, sA8(3).
1975] THE PERCEPTION OF WOMEN IN POLICY FORMULATION
619
for a disability pension. These are based on “recency” (the number
of years during which contributions have been made in a specified
“most recent” period) 14 and/or “attachment” (the proportion of
actual to possible contributory years). 15 The underlying cause for
discrimination is the same –
the establishment of a standard based
on the male worker pattern and expecting the female worker to fit
that mold. To qualify before January 1, 1976, one must have contri-
buted for five years between 1966 and 1976; after 1976, for five years
of the most recent ten-year period; after 1981, for six years and at
least one-third of the maximum contributory period (i.e., from the
time of one’s eighteenth birthday to the date of disability). Robert
M. Ball, Commissioner of Social Security in the United States from
1962 to 1973 described the impact of a similar restriction in the U.S.
social security scheme before the Joint Economic Committee of the
93rd Congress: 16
It is quite clear that because of their dual role as homemakers and paid
workers outside the home, the social security protection of many married
women is more affected by absences from the paid labour force than
is true in the case of men …. One effect of this pattern is that a sub-
stantially smaller proportion of women workers are insured for disability
insurance than is the case of men workers, about 40% compared with about
90%.17
To make the disability pension non-discriminatory and equally
accessible to men and women workers, it should be dependent only
on fully insured status as are retirement benefits.
YMPE Increase: Uneven Impact on Women
Pensions are based also on earnings, so they reflect the effects of
discrimination in pay and opportunity and sex ghettoization. Because
of these factors the legislated increase in the level of Yearly
Maximum Pensionable Earnings will have a disparate impact on
women. The YMPE increased from $5,600 in 1973 to $7,400 in 1975.
Ultimately it will be tied to the annual average wage.18
14 Ibid., s.44.2 added by An Act to amend the Canada Pension Plan, supra,
f.n.1l.
15 Ibid.
16Economic Problems of Women, Hearings before the Joint Economic
Committee, Congress of the United States, 93d Congress, 1st Sess., July 25,
1973, 307-318.
17 Ibid., 307.
18 Supra, f.n.1l, s2(2).
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The effect of this change will be to increase the pensions of male
workers disproportionately to those of female workers. Although
more women (and a higher proportion of women) are employed than
ever before, 19 they continue to be clustered in low paying, low status
occupations.20 The annual average wage of the full time female
worker in 1972 was $5,122, compared with $8,913 for her male
counterpart. During the past three years the gap between the average
earnings of male and female employees has been increasing2 and
owing to large, across-the-board percentage
in wages
currently being negotiated, the gap may be expected to widen further
still.
increases
Comparatively few women will benefit as much as most men from
the YMPE set at the annual average wage level 2 a because com-
paratively few women will ever reach that level 2 Because women’s
earned income is lower than men’s, they would benefit more from
receiving a pension based on a higher proportion of low basic earn-
ings than they will from a lower proportion of the annual average
wage.23 Thus, while the increased YMPE apparently improves the
position of all workers alike, equity of treatment between the sexes
1939.7% of all women aged 14 and over are working for pay; Statistics
Canada, The Labor Force, Cat.71-001, Monthly, January 1975, 14, Chart 5.
20 More than 62% of all women workers in 1972 were in administrative
support, sales and service occupations; derived from Information Canada,
Women in the Labour Force, Facts and Figures 1973 ed. (1974), 49, Table 24.
Female Income
Expressed as
a Percentage of
Male Income
.1 Average earnings of
Identical Individuals
1968
1969
1970
1971
1972
Male
$6,202
6,858
7,366
8,014
8,913
Females
$3,497
4,042
4,461
4,748
5,122
Total
$5,396
6,019
6,500
7,040
7,784
56.4%
58.9%
60.6%
59.3%
57.5%
Revenue Canada, Taxation Statistics 1974 ed., 171. The figures for 1974 are as
follows: Males: $9,500, Females: $5,300, Female Income Expressed as a
Percentage of Male Income: 55.78%; address entitled Equality: A Principle in
Practice, by the Hon. Marc Lalonde, Minister responsible for the Status of
Women, to Action 75+, Ottawa, Oct. 15, 1975.
21a This is true in spite of the fact that all contributor earnings are updated
according to movements in the yearly maximum pensionable earnings.
22 E.g., on March 31, 1972, 75% of the female public servants in Manitoba
received less than, and 75% of male public servants received more than,
$7,000 per year; Civil Service Commission, Report of the Task Force on Equal
Opportunities in the Civil Service (1974), 21.
23See, e.g., testimony and brief of Merton C. Bernstein, Professor of Law,
Ohio State University, Economic Problems of Women, supra, f.n.16, 297.
1975] THE PERCEPTION OF WOMEN IN POLICY FORMULATION
621
in practice would have dictated a lower earnings ceiling and a higher
percentage replacement of earned income.’
Summary
These few brief items demonstrate how policies that appear fair
in form may be discriminatory in practice if the standards on which
they are based are male-oriented. Jessie Bernard in Women and the
Public Interest had this comment to make:
What I object to is the unexamined assumption that the measures,
standards and evaluations of differences should be in male terms. What I
reject is the overvaluation of the contribution of men and the under-
valuation of the actual and potential contribution of women.2 5
Because of this fundamental and persistent weakness in social policy,
in spite of the legislated removal of overt discrimination against
women, economic security is still a male prerogative. As long as a
woman fits into the traditional adult male role, she is accorded equal
treatment. When she deviates from his pattern, she loses her equality.
No consideration is given by policy makers to the different employ-
ment patterns of women which have evolved as they have attempted
to work in the paid economy while continuing to carry their tradi-
tional burdens in the family. Nor is consideration given to the massive
grants which women make to the economy through carrying those
unpaid burdens (for example child care and the consumerism in-
volved in running a home), on which the family and society is so
dependent. A similar analysis of unemployment insurance and other
programs would show the same weakness, for the same reasons.
III. Women and Taxation: Concept of Dependency
The taxation system also deals inadequately with women’s eco-
nomically productive activities. Canadian tax law still embraces the
concept of the dependent wife, and in doing so makes possible
federal and provincial tax policies that operate seriously to her
detriment.
24 Replacement income under the Canada Pension Plan, set at 25% of total
pensionable earnings divided by possible contribution years when the Plan
was established in 1966, has not been changed; Canada Pension Plan, S.C. 1964-
65, c.51, s.46.
25 Bernard, Women and the Public Interest: An Essay on Policy and Protest
(1971), 41.
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Interspousal Taxation
Examples of this discrimination are to be found in section 74 of
the Income Tax Act2″ which imposes penalties on women who work
for their husbands in husband-wife establishments, 27 or in a husband-
wife/employee status,2 8 or who derive income or capital gains from
property received as a gift from the husband..20 Provincially, taxation
on gifts and estates passing between husband and wife fall into the
same category. In this case women are compelled to pay taxes on
property to which they materially contributed, even though these
contributions may not have been in the form of direct money pay-
ments.30
These provisions theoretically work both ways, but because of the
realities of our economic and social system they usually work to the
grave disadvantage of women. So great is the fear of collusion to
evade taxation, that the legislators are willing to deny women who
work with their husbands the employment benefits and earned
tax relief other workers receive as a matter of right. In this case
tax law compounds the inequities of family property law which
regards such labour as a woman’s wifely duty, to be performed
without any resultant share in the property of the marriage unit.
Babette Barton, Professor of Law at Berkeley University of
California, articulates the frustration women experience over their
treatment in taxation and property law:
If I as a working woman have a bank account in which I deposit my
salary, and another bank account in which I deposit gifts from my
husband, what reason is there for a law that tells me I have got to use
the bank account that is traceable to my salary if I want to avoid this
fictional attribution of my contribution to my husband. I fail to see any
21 S.C. 1970-71-72, c.163.
27 Ibid., s.74(5).
28Ibid., ss.74(3) and (4).
29Ibid., ss.74(1) and (2).
30 Report of the Royal Commission on Taxation (1966), vol.2, 12:
“… we are convinced that the subjection of a widow or widower to an
estate tax upon the death of his or her spouse is inequitable. The’estate
has been generated by the earnings of the family less the spending of the
family. In the typical case each spouse has had an influence on at least one
of the two determinants of the size of the estate. Accordingly the savings
of the family are a joint product of the efforts, decisions and sacrifices
of both spouses. It is arguable that one half of the estate represents a gift
‘from the deceased spouse to the survivor and should be subject to tax.
However, we believe that to divide the estate in this way would be
hopelessly arbitrary. This being so we consider that in most cases it is
inequitable to subject transfers between husband and wife to any form
of tax.”
1975] THE PERCEPTION OF WOMEN IN POLICY FORMULATION
623
justification for these kinds of economic distortions ….
If we are to
continue emancipation for women under law, provisions
that under-
value a woman’s contributions or disparage her independence must fall to
reform 1 ‘
The Marriage Unit for Taxation Purposes
For taxation purposes, the marriage unit is frequently advocated
as a solution to the problems of unearned income shifting between
spouses. This may help to solve some of the administrative problems
for tax collectors, but it will not solve the anomaly of women’s
economic position vis-&-vis taxation. An assumption made by ad-
vocates of the marriage unit for taxation purposes is that marriage
creates an economic partnership to which each partner contributes
and in which each shares in the savings acquired by either during
the marriage. If this assumption were true there would be some
validity in establishing a family unit for taxation purposes since it
would be consistent with the economic position of the partners.
However, as the cases of Mrs Murdoch -2 and Mrs Rathwell “* have
demonstrated clearly, the position of the married woman in Canada
is far from ideal. For this reason it would be an injustice to Canadian
women to establish a marriage unit for taxation purposes, without
first legislating a comprehensive property law for an equal financial
partnership during marriage which would apply the concept of the
marriage unit not only for taxation but also for the economic benefit
of the wife.
Five years ago the Royal Commission on the Status of Women
recommended the concept of the marriage unit for the purpose of
taxation. ”
In the Report it was associated with a property law
reform that would have created equity within the marriage unit for
both husband and wife, and other taxation reforms that would have
altered drastically the position of women in the economy.
Creating Equity Within the System
Because Canadian tax law still embraces the concept that the
wife is dependent and does not distinguish between her and the
child who really is dependent, it perpetuates and magnifies inequities
:11 Economic Problems of Women, supra, f.n.16, 262.
32 Murdoch v. Murdoch [1975] S.C.R. 423.
: Rathwell v. Rathwell (1974) 16 R.F.L. 387 (Sask. O.B.).
:14 Even under these circumstances I tend to believe that individual taxation
would be most consistent with the goal of maintaining a woman’s individual
identity and providing a neutral tax context for all taxpayers.
:s Supra, f.n.2, 304.
McGILL LAW JOURNAL
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between other taxpayers as well as between spouses. The Royal
Commission on the Status of Women dealt innovatively with the
position of women in the tax system. It attempted to come to terms
with women’s economic role in homemaking and child care.
It considered the present tax system unfair, not because it
overtaxes indirectly the incomes of married women who are gain-
fully employed but because in the situation where the wife works
in the home it undertaxes the family without dependent children,
and overtaxes the family with dependent children. Its conclusion
was that the, problem of creating an equitable tax system lies in
tax exemptions: under the present system the tax exemption for
a dependent spouse is too high, and for a dependent child is too low.
It is illogical to attach the lower exemption
the child who un-
questionably requires services of a high value and so is properly classed
as a dependant, and at the same time to attach the higher exemption to
the wife at home who unquestionably supplies services and so should not
be included in the dependant class.”‘
to
Spousal Exemption: Basis of Tax Equity
The spousal exemption is a fundamental factor in creating equity
between taxpayers whether they are married or single and whether
or not one or both spouses work in the paid labour market. In the
present system the exemption for married couples favours the one-
earner family without dependent children.
In the one-earner family where one spouse (usually the wife)
works only at home, the taxpayer receives a dependent allowance for
the spouse3f;a although the income which can be imputed from her
services in the home tends to conserve and augment the earner’s
income. This increases the taxable income of the family dispropor-
tionately to the taxable income of the two-earner family with the
same income. In the two-earner family, extra expenses are incurred
by the second worker in order to earn an income (now partly pro-
vided for by a $150 exemption) .3
3, Extra expenses are incurred as
well to the extent that the value of the services performed by the
housewife is lost or the cost of replacing them is not deductible from
the income of the two-earner family. There is thus an extra tax
burden on the two-earner family. When this extra burden is combined
with the lowering of the marriage exemption through the mandatory
aggregation of spousal incomes at the lower income levels (between
36 Supra, f.n.2, 299.
6a Supra, f.n26, s.109(1)(a).
30b Ibid., s.8(1)(a).
1975] THE PERCEPTION OF WOMEN IN POLICY FORMULATION
625
$314 and $1,806), :’ a strong disincentive arises to keep the secondary
family earner from seeking paid employment unless her income is
substantial. Yet ironically, her independent security both in the
marriage and in the economy is dependent on her taking paid em-
ployment.
One writer from Vancouver estimates that a British Columbia
resident earning $10,000 with two dependent children and a wife
earning between $314 and $1,800, would, by his tax loss, pay 30%
of his wife’s income. If his income were $20,000 he would pay by
his tax loss 43% of his wife’s income .3 7 This is a severe deterrent to
the woman who wishes to take paid employment, not only econom-
ically but psychologically.”8 A significant decrease in the spousal
exemption would make the tax system more neutral with respect to
the spouse in the home and would thus create greater equity between
taxpayers. This was recommended by the Royal Commission, which
rejected an alternative proposal to include in the tax base an income
imputed to the housewife’s self-produced services.”:
Turning to the other half of the equation, the care of children,
the Royal Commission on the Status of Women made a significant
break with tradition in recognizing the contribution of time and care
provided by a mother in the home and recommending that it be
brought into the tax system. Under the present system exemptions
for child care are provided only for working mothers and one-parent
families.4 Many working mothers are unable to take advantage of
the exemptions and others must spend much more than the maxi-
3Cc Ibid., s.109(l)(a).
37 Holme, “Love Is Being Grateful for $314 a Year”, Kinesis, vol.4, no.36,
September 1974.
38 Grace Ganz Blumberg, Teaching Fellow, Harvard Law School, believes that
“the way in which a working wife perceives her efforts to be economically
productive presents as significant a woman’s rights issue as does the problem
of total deterrence”; Economic Problems of Women, supra, f.n.16, 232.
39 Hartle, Taxation of the Incomes of Married Women, February 1969, Studies
of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women (1971). To demonstrate
his principle Hartle sets an arbitrary value of $2,000 on self-services in the
home for each physically and mentally able adult of working age, and a basic
non-discretionary expense of maintaining oneself. For the person earning an
income, the first $2,000 would not be taxed because this part of earned income
would merely substitute for imputed income and would represent no addition
to the tax base. For the person not earning an income, the non-discretionary
expense would be subtracted from the $2,000 imputed income and the
remainder would be included in the tax base; ibid., ch.5. See also, “Summary
of the System Proposed by Hartle” in Report of the Royal Commission on the
Status of Women in Canada (1970), 294-297.
40 Supra, f.n.26, s.63.
McGILL LAW JOURNAL
[Vol. 21
mum exemptions in order to continue working. The Royal Com-
mission recommended that:
Any compensation for the cost of caring for a dependant should not be
contingent on the mother being in the labour’force, because these services
have to be provided whether the mother works in the home or outside.
For the mother who works at home, this cost might be valued in terms of
the cash income she foregoes by looking after children at home instead
of taking paid employment. We believe that the state should give adequate
compensation for the cost of true dependants, whether that cost
is
measured in cash outlays or in time devoted to care and supervision or
both. This compensation should be given to all families that support
such dependants whether the mother stays at home or works outside.41
The solution it suggests is substantial taxable cash allowances for
dependent children 2 to replace the present system of family allow-
ances and income tax exemptions for children under sixteen.4 2a Such
allowances would enable a mother to make a free choice about
looking after, her children in her own home, or seeking child care
while she enters the paid labour market. Presumably, since the
allowance was to be for providing care and service to children, it
would also entitle the mother in the home to participate in the
Canada Pension Plan and other fringe benefits offered to paid
workers.
These recommendations for the economic recognition of the role
of the woman in home and child care through the taxation system
have not been accepted by the government nor much supported by
women’s organizations. And yet they seem to be basic considerations
in creating economic equality and independence for women.
IV. Women and the Economy: Policy Decisions on Home and
Dependent Care
Family property law, social policy and taxation are all interre-
lated. In each area the achievement of equity between men and
women is interdependent and in each the common denominator
appears to be society’s definition of “work”. Paid labour is “work”
and entitles the labourer to economic and political power and in-
dependent security. Unpaid labour is not “work” and carries with
it none of these benefits. This is not to say that unpaid labour is not
necessary to the economy. Just as the one third sector of the labour
force which is female supports the paid economy and without which
41 Supra, f.n.2, 301-302.
42 Ibid., 303.
42a Supra, f.n.26, s.109(1)(d).
1975] THE PERCEPTION OF WOMEN IN POLICY FORMULATION
627
it could not operate, so the unpaid labour performed by women is
the foundation of the whole society. It is this perception that the
contributions of women in home, child and dependent care have
economic significance that is the missing element in policy formula-
tion. Without the introduction of this element, we cannot create a
society free from discrimination on the basis of sex.
The Uncounted Hours
Unpaid work is performed mainly in the household by women
where it is rewarded only by lip service, dependency and minimum
financial support in crisis circumstances; it is ignored by economic
policy.43 Even more incongruously, if a woman enters the labour
market but does so in the employment of her husband (as on a
farm or in a small business establishment) she is penalized 4
The classic response when these situations are questioned is:
“How do we know she is actually working?”; “So little is known
about the household”. It is also contended that special supervision of
women’s activities would be not only difficult but also offensive:
“How do I know you don’t run a dirty house?”. A strict analysis of
performance of other services paid with public funds in the occupa-
tional categories of teachers, clergy, elected officials, civil servants,
doctors and armed forces would not reveal complete satisfaction
either. Many of these occupational and service groups will not allow
their members to be monitored or disciplined except by themselves.
Only very recently has there been reason to hope that the house-
hold and the work women do within it may become part of our
policy considerations in the future. This is because economists are
beginning to perceive both as factors in economic development.
To know more about the unpaid work women perform at home is
becoming a matter of expediency for the economy, not only a matter
of justice for women.
43 Menzies, “The Achilles Heel of Women in the Industrial Society” in
Women Speaking, April 1969; “The Family, the Homemaker and the Economy”
in Women Speaking, July to September, 1970.
44 She is not granted the status of a paid worker and so is not eligible for
the Canada Pension Plan or unemployment insurance like other workers; she
is given no protection of her right to any of the assets she and her husband
may acquire as a result of their joint labour; and she is taxed at a rate higher
than other taxpayers. Ironically, the exclusion of this woman is done in the
name of equality between men. The intention is to prevent her husband from
evading income tax. That it also prevents her from building up the independent
security to which other workers are entitled is known, but is considered
administratively too delicate for bureaucrats
to handle. See text, supra,
Part III, “Interspousal Taxation”.
McGILL LAW JOURNAL
[Vol. 21
Economic growth requires manpower, capital and materials for
increased production. It also requires increased consumption. Women
manage that consumption.4 5 Kenneth Boulding estimates that house-
holds purchase about 60% of the GNP in the U.S.A., and observes
that if other institutions had to perform the function of households,
society would immediately collapse4 Theodore W. Schultz identifies
the household as the
… predominant small, personal, face to face, private enterprise. It requires
organization, management and a good deal of entrepreneurship. The
decision-making pertaining to the household, borne mainly by women, has
become increasingly complex….47
is within these households that the major part of the work
It
women do takes place.
An empirical study on time spent in fourteen hundred two-parent
households on routine household work 48 indicates that the extent of
services that each family provides for its members depends primarily
on three things: the number of children in the family, the age of the
youngest child, and whether the housewife is employed in the labour
force. On the average, women who are not employed outside the
home do over 75% of all work done in the household and spend 8
hours per day on routine household tasks 9 The woman who works
for pay outside her home continues to do over two-thirds of the
work in her own household and spends on the average 5.3 hours
per day on unpaid work in the home.5 0 With this data one can assess
45 Galbraith, supra, f.n.9, 31.
46 Boulding, The Household as Achilles Heel, Premier Lecture of the Colston
E. Warne lecture series presented at the American Council on Consumer
Interests Annual Conference, Dallas, Texas, April 1972; reprinted in Journal
of Consumer Affairs, vol.VI, no.2, Winter, 110-119.
47 Schultz, “Woman’s New Economic Commandments” in Families of the
Future (1972), 79, 84.
“The new extension in theory reveals that each consumer good has two
prices attached to it –
a money price as in traditional consumer choice,
and a time cost of acquiring, processing and consuming the commodity.”
(at 82).
48 Walker and Gauger, The Dollar Value of Household Work, Social Sciences-
Consumer Economics and Public Policy No.5, Information Bulletin 60, Cornell
University, Ithaca, New York, 1973.
49.These times do not include the time spent on supervisory guidance and
protection for minor children. They do include: marketing, management and
record keeping; food preparation and aftermeal cleanup; house care and
maintenance, yard and car care; washing, ironing and special care of clothing;
physical and other care of family members.
50 Time-spent studies are now being conducted in one-parent and one-person
households.
1975) THE PERCEPTION OF WOMEN IN POLICY FORMULATION
629
the dollar value of unpaid work performed by both adults in a
two-parent family in the course of a year and calculate what it would
cost to replace the services of either.
For example, in a family of four made up of two adults and two
children, one aged five and the other less than a year, Walker and
Gauger estimate that if the husband alone were employed in the
labour market, both parents would contribute the equivalent of
$8,800 in household work to maintain the family. This is made up
of work performed by the father valued at $1,200 and work per-
formed by the mother valued at .$7,600. If the mother had paid
employment of fifteen hours per week or more, the total time
contributed by both spouses would decrease, so that the overall
value of time spent working to maintain the home would be $7,500.
The division is now the equivalent of $1,300 contributed by the father,
and $6,200 by the mother.
An assessment of the monetary value of household work will be
possible only when up-to-date data on the way time in the home is
spent by women is collected and appropriate wage rates are avail-
able. 1 This is clearly a federal government responsibility. But despite
the need for additional data, the research at Cornell discloses that
household activities continue to take time at all stages of the
family cycle. Much of the work cannot be automated, and it is untrue
to assume that less physically demanding household work means less
time-consuming work. Employed women who also manage their
homes work 66 to 75 hours a week. “Where”, asks Kathryn Walker,
“is the leisure society we are brainwashed to believe we have? 5 2
Statistics gathered from around the world show the same phenom-
enon. Married women who are also employed work up to 96 hours
per week. Recently the United Nations has expressed concern for the
physical health of mothers fulfilling the dual role of paid worker
and homemaker. 53 Dr Geraldine Gage suggests the reason women
work such long hours at home even though they are employed full
time outside is that the work at home must be done or the deterior-
51 Nevertheless, one recent estimate for the contribution in aggregate of
women working in the home not for pay in the U.S.A., using the Walker data,
is $200 billion dollars annually; Gage, Women in the Gross National Product –
A Viewfrom the Kitchen, unpublished paper given to the Conference on the
Economic Position of the Woman in the Family, Winnipeg, Manitoba, April
26-28, 1974.
52 Walker, “Household Work-Time”, Journal of Home Economics, Oct. 1973.
53 Equality of Opportunity and Treatment for Women Workers, International
Labour Conference 60th Sess., 1975, Report VIII, 3-64.
McGILL LAW JOURNAL
[Vol. 21
ation in the quality of life of their families would be too great for
the family or society to tolerate.5 4
The fact is inescapable. The work at home is a necessary adjunct
to the work in the market place. Each is necessary to the survival of
society. Unpaid work is no less demanding than paid work, and it
must be performed regardless of the circumstances. There is little
sharing of the burden. Husbands increase their contribution to the
work in the household only marginally even when their wives are
employed full time outside the home 5 Contrary to popular belief,
young husbands in the .U.S. survey assumed very little more of this
burden than did their older counterparts. In terms of U.S. wage
rates of December 1973 and average work-life statistics, Dr Gage
estimates that the unpaid services to the family over the life time
of any woman who has had children, exceed a quarter of a million
dollars. If she follows the average employment pattern of U.S.
women, the value of her work in the home will exceed her earned
income from paid employment5 6 Yet only through her earned income
does she acquire independent economic security and a right to a
share of the property she will help to acquire within the marriage
partnership.
Women cannot attain economic equality as long as the major
economic role they perform is outside the economy and is disregarded
in policy formulation. As long as we exclude the household and the
labour performed within it from the legitimate economic frame-
work of our society, women cannot attain equality and they will not
be able to share in the benefits of society proportionately to the
contribution they make to it.
The solution to this basic problem is not a matter of “attitudes”
which a government can afford to ignore. It is a matter of hard-core
economic and social policy for which a government has primary
responsibility.
54 Gage, supra, f.n.51.
55 From an average of 18% when the wife works only in the home, to only
20% if she works for pay outside the home; Walker and Gauger, supra, f.n.48.
56
Table
Lifetime Value of Economic Productive Activities
in Stenographic Occupations
Winter 1973
Services
Dollar Equivalent
(thot””
s S)
No. of Children
0
1
2
3
4+
Gage, supra, f.n.51.
(thousands 5)
Earnings
$204
146
128
117
99
$182
225
252
257
285
Total Value
(thousands S)
$386
371
380
374
384
