Work And Labour In Canad Article Analysis

In Chapter 5 of Work and Labour in Canada, Jackson & Thomas (2017) examine work, gender, social reproduction, and how their relationships contribute to the gender wage gap. Across the globe, women bear the primarily responsibility for social reproduction - activities that ensure daily survival needs are met, such as buying household goods and preparing meals. This may explain why women in Canada have lower participation rates in the workforce and in full-time employment as compared to men. In Scandinavian countries, women have higher participation rates in full-time work, which is largely credited to the public institutions and not-for-profits that provide affordable household caring needs (Jackson & Thomas, 2017). Although this reasoning is plausible, it also seems oversimplified and there may be many other cultural factors that contribute to these high rates in Scandinavia. Since elder care and child care is expensive in Canada, women still do the majority of social reproductive work. Consequently, they have to

Much of the unpaid care work that England (2005) mentions can be categorized as social reproduction, which is essential for the survival of the population. Women, make up the majority of both paid and unpaid care workers; therefore, gender inequality is impacted by how well care work is rewarded by society. The devaluation framework suggests that care work is poorly rewarded because it is considered to be women’s work. On the other hand, the public good framework argues care workers are paid poorly because the benefits of care work are difficult to quantify. (England, 2005) If this is the case, care workers would have low wages even if men dominated this work force. Can the gender pay gap be explained using multiple frameworks and can these frameworks be applied to other areas of