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Facts and Figures on Conditions of Women in Canada Women, Children and Seniors Hardest Hit by Poverty
For those living in couple families, the child poverty rate was 5.8 per cent, compared with 26.2 per cent for those in female lone-parent families. In other words, children living in single parent families headed by women are almost three times more likely to be living in poverty than those living in couple families. Around 216,000 persons aged 65 years and older, or 3.5 per cent of the senior population, lived in poverty in 2018, with 1.7 per cent of seniors who lived with families living in poverty compared to 7.9 per cent of unattached seniors, which is over six times higher. The overall low-income rate based on the low-income measure was 12.3 per cent in 2018 for children and 14.3 per cent for seniors.[2] A 2018 Angus Reid study indicated that women are more likely than men to experience poverty. The study looked at Canadians' self-reported experiences of financial hardships. It suggests that 16 per cent of Canadians could be categorized as "struggling" economically. This means that they face ongoing difficulty covering expenses for basics, including food, utilities, winter clothing, housing, and dental care, and may have to use services such as "pay day loans" and food banks to get by. Sixty per cent of those in the "struggling" category are women, while 40 per cent are men. Some groups of women have higher rates of poverty and are more likely than others to be poor. The prevalence of low incomes among the following groups of women and girls is particularly high: - Aboriginal women and
girls with registered or Indian treaty status --
32.3 per cent
More than 235,000 Canadians experience homelessness annually. On a given night, more than 35,000 Canadians are homeless. Women parenting on their own enter shelters at twice the rate of two-parent families. Domestic violence against women and children is a contributing factor to homelessness. When women become homeless, they are also at an increased risk of violence, sexual assault and exploitation. Over 25 years, child and family poverty has increased by 25 per cent, rising from 15.8 per cent of children in 1989 to 19.1 per cent of children in 2012. How Does Canada Compare?In March 2019, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reported that Canada's relative poverty rate of 12.4 per cent was "slightly above" the average for OECD member countries, at 11.7 per cent. While poverty rates for the elderly population were lower than average compared to other OECD countries, the poverty rates for children and youth in Canada were higher than the OECD average.
As for safety concerns, the OECD noted that only 7 per cent of Canadian men did not feel safe walking alone at night in the city or area where they lived in 2016/17. The share of Canadian women who feel unsafe is considerably higher, at 27 per cent, but still lower than for many OECD countries, where 32 per cent of women do not feel safe on average. Notes1. According to the market basket measure, a family lives in poverty if it does not have enough income to purchase a specific basket of goods and services in its community. 2. According to the low-income measure, individuals live in low income if their household after-tax income falls below half of the median after-tax income, adjusting for household size. The median after-tax income of Canadian families and unattached individuals was $61,400 in 2018. (Sources: Canadian Women's Foundation's Factsheet: Women and Poverty in Canada, Statistics Canada, OECD)
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Statistics Canada
reported on February 24, that based on the market
basket measure, around 3.2 million Canadians, or
8.7 per cent of the population, were living below
Canada's Official Poverty Line in 2018.[
In some parts of
the country, there are appallingly high rates of
poverty. For instance, 50 per cent of status First
Nations children in Canada live in poverty; that
figure increases to 64 per cent in Saskatchewan
and 62 per cent in Manitoba.
The OECD also
reported that Canada ranks in the top five of OECD
countries that have the highest shares of
households owning their property with a mortgage
(41 per cent of all households). It noted that the
housing cost burden is particularly onerous for
low-income people -- 48 per cent of low-income
owners with a mortgage spent over 40 per cent of
their disposable income on a mortgage in 2016, the
fifth highest share among OECD countries, and that
the same indicator decreases to 43 per cent for
low-income renters.