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Bringing Down the Barriers:
The Labour Market and Women with Disabilities in Ontario

by Gail Fawcett

     

Section 2:
Barriers specific to women with disabilities in the labour market

Women with disabilities experience everyday life and the labour market quite differently from both women without disabilities and men with disabilities. However, even among women with disabilities, there are diverse circumstances. In this section we look at living arrangements, food shortages, experiences with labour force stability, earnings capacity, household tasks and the nature of women’s disability in relation to their participation in the labour market.

Part A: Labour force experiences and poverty

Women with disabilities living alone

"I would love to be able to work . . . But the doctor says don’t look at more than part-time. I’m by myself though and I need a full income. If you are by yourself, that is the only income you have. It’s a scary thing."

Women with disabilities who are the only adult income-earner in their household (typically in households where they live alone or as lone parents) face different pressures and complicating factors than those who live with other adults.

Women and men with disabilities are more likely to live alone than either women or men without disabilities. In 1996, 13 per cent of women with disabilities in Canada and 16 per cent of their male counterparts lived alone.⁸

Table 2: Living arrangements of women and men with and without disabilities, aged 15 to 64, Canada, 1996
	With Disabilities		Without Disabilities
	Women	Men	Women	Men
Alone and unattached	13.4%	15.9%	8.5%	10.9%
Living with other adults and no children under 25	26.9%	26.1%	21.6%	20.5%
Living with partner and children under 25	28.6%	33.7%	38.1%	38.0%
Living as lone parent with children under 25	9.7%	2.8%	7.6%	1.1%
Living as child in a family	11.1%	11.7%	14.4%	19.7%
Other	10.4%	9.9%	9.8%	9.7%
Source: Prepared by the Canadian Council on Social Development using data from Statistics Canada's National Population Health Survey, 1996/97.

Women with disabilities and lone parenthood

Women with disabilities are slightly more likely than women without disabilities to live as lone parents of children under 25. Among women with disabilities, almost one in 10 were lone parents; among women without disabilities, 8 per cent were in this situation.

"When a man gets a disability, the wife is more apt to stay with him. With a disabled woman, the man is likely to leave. She stays at home with the kids to support. Or the kids go with their father and really destroy her self-esteem."

Compared to their non-disabled counterparts, women with disabilities are almost twice as likely to be divorced, separated or widowed. For example, 19 per cent of women with disabilities are divorced, separated or widowed; among women without disabilities, this figure is 10 per cent. Among female lone parents with disabilities, the proportions are even higher: 76 per cent are divorced, separated or widowed. Among their counterparts without disabilities, 64 per cent are in this situation.⁹

 

"When I was working almost full-time, I got cut off all social assistance and lost my drug card. Then I got sick. Then my hours at work were cut and my son came back to live with me and I had to go back on the system again. It was hard enough when I lived alone, but now I have a child to support and I’m only allowed to make so much extra before they start taking it off my cheque. It’s scary when you have somebody else to take care of."

The vast majority of female lone parents with and without disabilities bear most of the financial load for their children. About two-thirds of female lone parents over the age of 25 with disabilities are responsible for 100 per cent of their family’s income.¹⁰ For female lone parents without disabilities, the figure is similar, at 65 per cent. Almost nine out of 10 female lone parents with and without disabilities over the age of 25 are responsible for over three-quarters of their family income.

 

 

Even when they share the responsibility for supporting their families with a spouse, women with disabilities still consider the effect that participating in the labour force could have on their children.¹¹

"I am working again! The pay is more than I would get on my pension. But, my kids, because they are 18 and 21, they got a portion of my pension and they take a loss if I go off the pension. The money helps pay for their education. My husband works, but we need both our incomes to pay for some of the equipment I need. My new employer offered me a five-month contract with a strong possibility of extension. It’s a gamble, but I want to work so badly that I think it’s worth it to try."

 

Women with disabilities and hunger

When trying to describe how economic instability affects their lives, women with disabilities in our focus groups often mentioned their fear of going hungry and becoming homeless.¹²

"If you get a job, you get cut off the social assistance. If you lose the job, it can take months before you qualify for full benefits again. I’m a single parent and I worry about that. I don’t want my kids to go hungry and live in a cardboard box."

Women with disabilities are also more likely than other groups to run out of money for food. As shown in Table 3, lone-parent women with disabilities were the most vulnerable group of all: over one-third of women in this situation reported that they ran out of money to buy food during the previous year. Three in 10 reported that it happens "occasionally" to "often."

Table 3: Percentage of women and men with and without disabilities who experienced food shortages, aged 15 to 64, by living arrangements, Canada, 1996
		Ran out of money for food at least once last year	Runs out of money for food sometimes to often
Unattached and alone
	Women with disabilities	28.7%	21.6%
	Women without disabilities	6.6%	4.4%
	Men with disabilities	23.0%	13.9%
	Men without disabilities	7.2%	4.2%
Living with others with no children under 25
	Women with disabilities	7.8%	6.2%
	Women without disabilities	3.1%	1.7%
	Men with disabilities	7.3%	4.6%
	Men without disabilities	4.4%	2.6%
Living with partner and children under 25
	Women with disabilities	12.5%	8.9%
	Women without disabilities	4.8%	2.2%
	Men with disabilities	13.5%	7.7%
	Men without disabilities	3.7%	2.3%
Lone parent with children under 25
	Women with disabilities	35.6%	30.2%
	Women without disabilities	21.1%	15.9%
	Men with disabilities	***	***
	Men without disabilities	***	***
Child aged 15 to 24 living in family
	Women with disabilities	***	***
	Women without disabilities	5.0%	3.0%
	Men with disabilities	7.7%	***
	Men without disabilities	4.7%	3.1%
Total*
	Women with disabilities	15.2%	11.5%
	Women without disabilities	6.0%	3.7%
	Men with disabilities	12.8%	7.8%
	Men without disabilities	4.5%	2.7%
* Individuals with "other" living arrangements are not included here.
*** Unstable estimate due to small sample size.
Source: Prepared by the Canadian Council on Social Development using data from Statistics Canada's National Population Health Survey, 1996/97.

Women without disabilities who were lone parents also experienced food shortages, but not to the same extent as their counterparts with disabilities. Overall, three out of every 10 women with disabilities who are lone parents experience food shortages occasionally to often, compared to three in 20 of their non-disabled counterparts.

Women with disabilities who live alone are also much more likely to experience food shortages than are their counterparts without disabilities. For example, almost seven per cent of women without disabilities living alone reported not having enough money to buy food, while almost 29 per cent of women with disabilities were in that situation.

 

Disabilities and hunger: The link with employment patterns

Among all working-age adults, hunger is much more likely to affect those who lack paid work than those with jobs. This is the most pronounced for women and men with disabilities. Table 4 shows that the economic stability of working at the same job throughout the year reduces the incidence of running out of money for food – although it by no means eliminates it.

Table 4: Percentage of women and men with and without disabilities who experienced food shortages, aged 15 to 64, by work pattern, Canada, 1996
	Worked one job all year	Worked two jobs or more, no gaps	Worked with gaps	No jobs all year
Women with disabilities	9.9%	16.8%	14.9%	18.9%
Women without disabilities	3.6%	5.8%	7.9%	10.5%
Men with disabilities	8.0%	7.9%	13.6%	18.7%
Men without disabilities	3.2%	7.5%	6.0%	8.3%
Source: Prepared by the Canadian Council on Social Development using data from Statistics Canada's National Population Health Survey, 1996/97.

Women with disabilities who worked at a single job throughout the entire year were less likely to run out of money to buy food than those who had less stable job patterns or no work at all. However, they were still more likely to find themselves running out of money for food than their non-disabled counterparts who also worked at one job all year.

For women with disabilities who had less stable employment, the outcome was much less favourable. Nearly 15 per cent of those with gaps in employment ran out of money for food. However, even among those who were employed all year at two or more jobs without gaps, nearly 17 per cent reported food shortages, only marginally fewer than those who did not work at all.

One might think that working full-year without gaps should offer protection against running out of money for food, even if it involves working at two or more jobs. This is true for all groups except women with disabilities. One possible explanation for this may be that when women with disabilities switch jobs, even when there is no time lag between them, they are more likely to experience a disruption in the flow of earnings, making them more vulnerable to cash flow problems.¹³

Another important factor may be the type of job held. People working in jobs with lower skill requirements or less responsibility are more likely to have less stable job patterns and experience food shortages. Table 5 shows the proportion of women and men with and without disabilities who held one job all year long, by skill level. Clearly, those in professional and high-level managerial jobs were more likely than semi-skilled and unskilled workers to have had a stable job throughout the year.

Table 5: Percentage of women and men with and without disabilities who had one job all year, aged 15 to 64, by occupational type, Canada, 1996
	Professional high-level managers	Semi-professional mid-level managers	Skilled workers	Semi-skilled workers	Unskilled workers
Women with disabilities	83.2%	65.8%	70.7%	59.9%	66.2%
Women without disabilities	80.8%	79.1%	79.9%	70.4%	70.3%
Men with disabilities	74.6%	75.0%	69.4%	64.9%	62.4%
Men without disabilities	84.5%	83.1%	83.7%	73.8%	72.7%
Source: Prepared by the Canadian Council on Social Development using data from Statistics Canada's National Population Health Survey, 1996/97.

Table 6: Percentage of employed women and men with and without disabilities who reported food shortages, aged 15 to 64, by occupational type, Canada, 1996
	Professional high-level managers	Semi-professional mid-level managers	Skilled workers	Semi-skilled workers	Unskilled workers
Women with disabilities	***	***	5.4%	18.5%	13.2%
Women without disabilities	2.6%	3.2%	3.9%	5.3%	6.0%
Men with disabilities	***	4.7%	11.4%	10.2%	11.1%
Men without disabilities	1.0%	2.2%	4.3%	5.9%	5.4%
***Unstable estimate due to small sample size.
Source: Prepared by the Canadian Council on Social Development using data from Statistics Canada's National Population Health Survey, 1996/97.

Table 7: Broad occupational distribution of employed women and men with and without disabilities, aged 15 to 64, Canada, 1996
	Professional high-level managers	Semi-professional mid-level managers	Skilled workers	Semi-skilled workers	Unskilled workers
Women with disabilities	10.2%	25.6%	13.9%	24.1%	26.1%
Women without disabilities	11.9%	24.5%	13.6%	29.3%	20.8%
Men with disabilities	11.8%	19.9%	20.4%	23.6%	24.4%
Men without disabilities	13.0%	24.6%	20.2%	20.6%	21.6%
Source: Prepared by the Canadian Council on Social Development using data from Statistics Canada's National Population Health Survey, 1996/97.

There is also a link between job type and food shortages. As shown in
Table 6, women with disabilities who worked as semi-skilled and unskilled workers were noticeably more likely to have experienced food shortages than women with disabilities working in jobs with higher skill requirements and more responsibility. For example, about five per cent of women with disabilities working as skilled workers experienced food shortages, compared to about 13 per cent of those in unskilled jobs.

While a similar pattern existed for women without disabilities and men with and without disabilities, it is more pronounced for women with disabilities.

Women with disabilities are also highly concentrated in semi-skilled and unskilled jobs, increasing their risk of low earnings and a lack of money for food. Half of employed women with disabilities were involved in this type of labour, which was also associated with less stable job patterns and a greater likelihood of running out of money to buy food.

The occupational distributions of women and men with and without disabilities are actually quite similar under this broad classification. Looking at the more detailed classification presented in Table 8, however, the gender differences are more clearly visible. Women are more highly concentrated in clerical, sales and service occupations, while men are more highly concentrated in crafts, trades and manual occupations.

Table 8: Occupational distribution of employed women and men with and without disabilities, aged 15 to 64, Canada, 1996
	With disabilities		Without disabilities
	Women	Men	Women	Men
professional / high-level managers	10.3%	11.8%	11.9%	13.0%
semi-professional / technical	14.4%	7.7%	13.1%	8.7%
middle management	8.6%	6.6%	8.6%	9.9%
supervisory / foremen/women	2.6%	5.6%	2.8%	6.0%
skilled / clerical / sales / service	11.8%	3.8%	12.2%	4.2%
skilled / crafts / trades	***	15.4%	***	14.6%
farm	***	3.6%	***	3.7%
semi-skilled / clerical / sales	17.7%	7.3%	24.0%	8.7%
semi-skilled / manual	6.4%	16.3%	5.3%	11.9%
unskilled / clerical / sales	18.2%	4.1%	13.1%	3.3%
unskilled / manual	7.2%	17.9%	6.9%	16.1%
***Unstable estimate due to small sample size.
Source: Prepared by the Canadian Council on Social Development using data from Statistics Canada's National Population Health Survey, 1996/97.

There were slight differences based on disability status, however. For example, women with disabilities are slightly less likely to be professionals or high-level managers, semi-skilled clerical, sales, or service workers and slightly more likely to be unskilled clerical, sales and service workers than are women without disabilities.

 

Disability, job prospects and labour market stability

In addition to the instability that they might experience while employed, women with disabilities face many challenges simply getting a job. Some focus group participants noted that they had dropped out of the labour force because they were discouraged by their previous lack of success.

"I have been through unemployment. I have begged for a job. I once put on an application: ‘Please, I want a job. I’ll do anything.’ I didn’t even get a phone call on that one."

For many women (and men) with disabilities, the nature of their disability narrows their choice of job opportunities even further, due to physical or mental limitations. Layoffs often hurt persons with disabilities more than others because it can be very difficult to find another job that is compatible with their disability.

"I was working at a job that was geared to my disability, but I lost it due to cutbacks. Then I became a cashier. That nearly killed me and I had to quit. I haven’t worked in almost a year. About six weeks ago, I finally gave up looking for a job that would fit my disability."

Despite being discouraged by the lack of success that they had had in the paid labour market, many women in our focus groups demonstrated tremendous courage and determination.

"I joined a ‘job club’ and I was the only one with a disability and the only one who didn’t get one single interview. I follow the ads in the paper. I take resumes into organizations where there are jobs that I think I can do. I fax in applications and resumes and follow-up with phone calls. I know that most of the time, they don’t even read my resume. But I know that eventually, if I keep it up, I will get something."

Although these women are actively searching for a job, they must also rely on income support programs such as social assistance or the Ontario Disability Support Program. This creates quite a dilemma for them. As one woman stated:

"To get a job you have to prove to an employer that you can work. But to survive when you don’t have a job, you have to convince the government that you can’t work."

Another complication for persons with disabilities is the fact that some disabilities are cyclical in nature, and this can contribute to unstable work patterns for some people.¹⁴

"It’s a vicious circle. If you get a job and become ill, you are left wondering: Will I get my disability pension back? When I’m sick, I can’t do anything, but in between, I’m fine. They assume that you will always be in the same condition."

Most income programs assume that disabilities are permanent and stable, even though some disabilities are cyclical in nature. This creates barriers to employment for some persons with disabilities.¹⁵ Out of fear of not being able to go back on benefits, many women do the safest thing possible – they stay out of the labour market.

Compared to women without disabilities who were in the paid labour market at some point between 1993 and 1994, women with disabilities were more likely to have experienced instability either in the form of unemployment, periods of dropping out of the labour market, or a combination of the two. Among those who do find work, there is no guarantee of stability. More than half (56.8 percent) of women with a disability in both 1993 and 1994 remained officially "out of the paid labour force" throughout those two years. Among women without disabilities, less than one in five (15.3 per cent) were officially out of the paid labour force throughout that same period.¹⁶

---

Almost seven out of 10 women with disabilities who officially participated in the labour market at some point during 1993 or 1994 experienced some type of instability. Among women without disabilities, about two in five women experienced such disruptions in work; among men with disabilities, three out of five had such disruptions

 

Women with disabilities more likely to have low earnings

Even when they are employed all year long, women with disabilities typically earn less than either women without disabilities or men with disabilities.¹⁷ As shown in Table 9, 38 per cent of working-age women with disabilities who worked throughout 1994 had earnings of less than $15,640, placing them in the lowest earnings quintile for all earners. This compares to 29 per cent of women without disabilities also working a full year, 15 per cent of men with disabilities working a full year, and 11 per cent of men without disabilities working a full year.¹⁸ Well over one-third of women with disabilities who were working a full year had earnings that were among the lowest 20 per cent of earners. In contrast, only one in 10 men without disabilities had earnings low enough to place them in this category.

Table 9: Quintile-based earnings distribution of women and men with and without disabilities, employed full- or part-time throughout 1994, aged 15 to 64, Canada, 1994
Earnings quintile	Women with disabilities	Women without disabilities	Men with disabilities	Men without disabilities	All
Less than $15,640	37.6%	29.4%	15.3%	10.8%	20.0%
$15,640 to $25,031	27.8%	25.5%	15.6%	13.3%	19.3%
$25,032 to $34,475	16.4%	21.6%	19.7%	20.2%	20.7%
$34,476 to $45,892	13.1%	13.9%	21.7%	26.0%	20.1%
$45,893 and above	5.1%	9.6%	27.7%	29.8%	19.9%
Note: Quintiles created by dividing all income earners into five equal categories.
Source: Prepared by the Canadian Council on Social Development using data from Statistics Canada's Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics, 1993-94.

Because of their labour force instability and lower earnings levels, women with disabilities may be more vulnerable to cash flow problems, which can, in turn, contribute to their greater likelihood of food shortages. They are also more likely than men to incur non-reimbursable costs related to their disability. In 1991, 38 per cent of women with disabilities reported having non-reimbursed household expenses related to their disabilities, compared to 32 per cent of their male counterparts.¹⁹

In order to be truly self-sufficient, both women and men with disabilities know that they need to earn a premium above what others earn in order to meet their extra costs for such things as medication, equipment, assistive devices, and so on. Many of these costs are at least partially covered by social assistance programs and other disability programs such as the Ontario Disability Support Program or the Canada Pension Plan Disability.

While men with disabilities also face difficulty finding employment that will pay enough to cover these extra costs and still provide a living, the much lower earnings of women place them in a more tenuous economic situation.

"They don’t understand why you won’t take minimum wage. When you get a job, you lose most or all of your benefits. They take away your drug card. You may have to use a large part of your salary just for medication to keep going."

"I have to work extra hours just to cover the extra costs of medication and transportation because of my disability. You may end up worse off than if you weren’t working at all."

Withdrawing from the labour market is often the most rational choice

Many women in our focus groups noted that they were afraid to risk entering the paid labour market because they believed that they would be much worse off than before if they were unable to hold onto their job. They considered the cost of failure to be too high for themselves and their families. Usually, these women weighed their desire to work and the cost of failure against their chances of obtaining stable employment that would provide them with a sufficient income. For many, this income also needed to cover extra costs such as medication, assistive devices and repairs to assistive devices. Many participants indicated that they felt it was "safer" to remain on some form of income support that would provide them with a low but stable income rather than risk taking a job which they might lose.

"I do volunteer work several days a week. I wish I could have a salary, but instead I rely on CPP and can only earn so much or they will cut me off. I’m a single mom with three kids. It’s OK for me to risk losing my income, but it’s not just me that I have to worry about. I can’t put my kids at risk like that. I’m trapped. What I have is poverty, but it is stable poverty."

According to the women in our focus groups, their past experiences and the experiences of friends with disabilities have led them to doubt the likelihood of long-term labour force success and to worry about the dangers of not succeeding. For many women with disabilities, remaining on income support or replacement programs is a rational response to the reality of their situation.

"A friend of mine got a contract with the provincial government. When it ended she couldn’t get any other work. She spent two years fighting to get full benefits back."

Women in our focus groups expressed particularly strong concerns about putting their children at risk by taking a job. In 1994, more than three-quarters (77 per cent) of female lone parents over age 25 with disabilities²⁰ reported government transfers as their major source of family income. In contrast, less than one-third (29 per cent) of lone-parent mothers without disabilities over age 25 reported government transfers as their major source of family income.²¹

Disability and poverty

Men with disabilities face many of the same barriers as women; however, for women, the barriers are often more pronounced and the negative outcomes more severe. For example, although the same proportion of women and men with disabilities who were employed throughout 1993 and 1994²² (81 per cent) were above the poverty line, this figure dropped dramatically for those who were out of the labour force for both years – 53 per cent of the men with disabilities were above the poverty line; for women, the figure was 46 per cent.

Table 10: Percentage of women and men with and without disabilities who stayed above the poverty line for two years, aged 15 to 64, by labour force status, Canada, 1993 and 1994
	Disabilities in both years		No disability in either year
	Women	Men	Women	Men
Employed both years	81.3%	80.9%	92.9%	91.0%
Not in labour force both years	46.2%	53.4%	69.8%	64.2%
Employed or unemployed both years	***	73.4%	78.3%	78.2%
Periods in and out of labour force	54.7%	62.6%	69.8%	74.5%
***Unstable estimate due to small sample size.
Source: Prepared by the Canadian Council on Social Development using data from Statistics Canada's Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics, 1993-94.

The potential gains are low for those who venture into the labour market but then experience some instability. Among women with disabilities who were out of the labour market at some point over two years, just over half (55 per cent) managed to stay above the poverty line. Among their male counterparts, about three out of every five (63 per cent) managed this.

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