Canadian Unemployment Trends with BC COVID-19 Milestones

Overview.

The COVID-19 global pandemic has and continues to take a significant toll on B.C. residents in myriad ways. Government health interventions in 2020 and 2021 drastically changed the labour landscape of the B.C. economy, and resulted in disproportionate shocks to female-dominated economic sectors.

For working mothers in B.C., various pandemic-related health restrictions created compounding effects of sector-wide shut downs and increased care-giving responsibilities as a response to increases in unemployment and leaves of absence from jobs.

This report uses the Canadian Labour Force Survey (LFS) data and outlines the relationship between the pandemic and its ensuing economic implications for working mothers between ages 25-44, including the effects of unemployment fluctuation and rising inflation rates in the period of January 2021 to September 2022, as the B.C. economy continues to stagnate post-pandemic.

We recognize that the data used in this survey uses a gender binary which fails to include the diverse experiences of parents who may resonate with a care-giving identity from a transgender or other gendered experience. We are grateful to the work of Kia et. al. (2022) for their efforts to include these valuable groups whose experiences continue to be rendered illegible to state and policy stakeholders due to harmful systemic biases in data collection methods.

Unemployment rate refers to the number of unemployed persons expressed as a percentage of the labour force

Statistics Canada

Labour Force Participation Rate refers to the labour force expressed as a percentage of the population 15 years of age and over

Statistics Canada

Labour Force Participation Rate in Canada (created by Trading Economics)

Data Source: Statistics Canada

"When care and employment became irreconcilable, it was most often mothers who reduced their hours, took leave, or were pushed out of their jobs."

(Fuller and Qian, 2020)

In the early days of the pandemic, some labour economists were concerned that the incredibly visible gender employment gap caused by the shutting down of female-dominated service sectors would reverse decades of movement towards gender equality in unemployment. While the initial shock of the pandemic might have been reasonable cause for this concern, evidence by the large plunge in LFPR in Canada in early 2020, Fuller and Qian posit that "while the pandemic was an enormous shock, it could not undo the longer standing cultural and structural shifts that motivate contemporary mothers’ employment in Canada" (2020). They argue that establishing more robust childcare systems that are capable of enable mothers to work should be prioritized as Canada moves forward (2020).

Understanding the Labour Economy.

Understanding Inflation.

Over the course of the last year, the average cost of living in Canada has increased at a rate unseen for decades. Inflation is increasing the cost of motherhood dramatically, with the largest impact being felt for those with multiple children.

Hours Worked for Male and Female Parents.

Most notable in the above graph is the reference line for March 2021. This month saw the implementation of emergency "circuit-breaker" restrictions implemented province-wide in B.C.

The above data shows a dramatic split between average hours worked for this particular month, with female parents working less, and male parents working more.

Hours Worked for Male Parents by Age Group.

In contrast to mothers, fathers of every age group are shown to have increased the amount of time they worked in March 2021 compared to the previous month.

Across the entire period, there is more stability in the average hours worked per week compared mothers, with the exception of the youngest age group (25-29 years).

Hours Worked for Female Parents by Age Group.

Stay at home orders coupled with systemically reinforced power struggles for equity seeking groups, including gender minorities and people of colour, have caused the distribution of this toll and struggle to be skewed.

Throughout this time, working mothers in particular have had to face disproportionate challenges across race and class identity lines.

References

Andrada-Poa, M. R. J., Jabal, R. F., & Cleofas, J. V. (2022). Single mothering during the COVID-19 pandemic: A remote photovoice project among Filipino single mothers working from home. Community, Work & Family, 25(2), 260–278. https://doi.org/10.1080/13668803.2021.2006608

Canadian COVID-19 Intervention Timeline | CIHI. (n.d.). Retrieved October 19, 2022, from https://www.cihi.ca/en/canadian-covid-19-intervention-timeline

Consumer price index (CPI) - province of british columbia. (2022, November 16). Retrieved December 1, 2022, from https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/data/statistics/economy/consumer-price-index

Fuller, S., & Qian, Y. (2021). Covid-19 and The Gender Gap in Employment Among Parents of Young Children in Canada. Gender & Society, 35(2), 206–217. https://doi.org/10.1177/08912432211001287

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Inflation affects women more than men. civil society can help. World Economic Forum. (n.d.). Retrieved December 1, 2022, from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/10/inflation-crisis-hits-women-harder/

Labour Market: Definitions, Graphs and Data. (n.d.). Bank of Canada. https://www.bankofcanada.ca/rates/indicators/capacity-and-inflation-pressures/labour-market-definitions/

Lemieux et al. (2020) Impact of Covid on Labour Market Lemieux et al. 2020 Impact of Covid on Labour Market.pdf

Munzner, T. (2015). Why: Task Abstraction. Visualization analysis and design (43-65). CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group. https://doi.org/10.1201/b17511

The Daily — Labour Force Survey, August 2021. (n.d.). https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/210910/dq210910a-eng.htm

Statistics Canada. (2022). Mean age of mother at time of delivery (live births) [Dataset] https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1310041701&cubeTimeFrame.startYear=2015&cubeTimeFrame.endYear=2021&referencePeriods=20150101%2C20210101

Statistics Canada. (2022). Labour Force Survey: Public Use Microdata File. [Dataset]. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71m0001x/71m0001x2021001-eng.htm

Statistics Canada. (2022). Consumer Price Index (CPI) statistics, measures of core inflation and other related statistics.[Dataset]. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1810025601&cubeTimeFrame.startMonth=01&cubeTimeFrame.startYear=2021&cubeTimeFrame.endMonth=09&cubeTimeFrame.endYear=2022&referencePeriods=20210101%2C20220901

Turner, L. H., Ekachai, D., & Slattery, K. (2022). How Working Mothers Juggle Jobs and Family during COVID-19: Communicating Pathways to Resilience. Journal of Family Communication, 22(2), 138–155. https://doi.org/10.1080/15267431.2022.2058510

Zanhour, M., & Sumpter, D. M. (2022). The entrenchment of the ideal worker norm during the COVID‐19 pandemic: Evidence from working mothers in the United States. Gender, Work & Organization, gwao.12885. https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12885