Fall 2021 | POINT OF VIEW: Carmina Ravanera

How to Think Like a Futurist

Why Power is Everyone’s Business

Creativity in the Virtual Age

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The Magazine of the Rotman School of Management UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

FALL 2021

THE SOCIALLY-CONSCIOUS BUSINESS PAGES 6, 32, 108

MANAGEMENT

Now What?

POINT OF VIEW

Carmina Ravanera, Research Associate, Institute for Gender and the Economy @Rotman

Creating an Economy (and Society) of Care

THIS PAST YEAR HAS SHOWN US that we have a window of possibility to not simply recover from this pandemic, but transform our society and economy to prioritize care and community.

Not long after COVID-19 struck, it became clear that it would not affect people across Canada equally. Women; Two-Spirit and gender-diverse people; Black, Indigenous and racialized communities; those experiencing low income; immigrants; and people with disabilities have all faced the brunt of both economic downturn and health risks.

Just three months after the pandemic began, in the summer of 2020, the participation rate of women in the Canadian labour force had returned to what it was in the 1980s. When schools and childcare facilities closed, many women — who disproportionately take on unpaid caregiving — left their jobs to look after their families. The in108 / Rotman Management Fall 2021

creased burden of care work during the pandemic led them to either cut their paid work hours or drop out of the workforce completely.

At the same time, due to stay-at-home orders and quarantining, we saw an alarming rise in the rate of gender-based violence; and racialized and immigrant women — who are concentrated in frontline care jobs such as personal support work that don’t offer paid sick leave — were contracting COVID-19 at higher rates. And many communities across the country, especially Indigenous communities and those in rural and remote areas, did not (and still do not) have access to clean water and affordable or quality housing to allow for safe quarantining.

One solution for mitigating worsening inequality is a national affordable childcare system, which experts agree will help boost women’s labour force participation. But focusing on women is not enough: The outsized impacts of COVID-19 on Black, Indigenous and people of colour

(BIPOC) communities underscore that any recovery policy — including a childcare program — must simultaneously address systemic racism.

As indicated, women have experienced disproportionate job loss due to increased demands at home — and also because women-majority sectors such as retail and hospitality have been the hardest hit by COVID-19. BIPOC women are facing higher rates of unemployment and financial insecurity than those who are white. Such circumstances have led many to deem the pandemic recession a ‘she-cession.’

Experts have agreed that we need an affordable, safe and high-quality childcare system to ensure an effective and equitable economic recovery. Currently, childcare is prohibitively expensive across most provinces and territories: The median cost of preschool-aged childcare per month is $1,000 or more in cities such as Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver. This is why childcare advocates recommended that the government contribute at least 1% of the country’s GDP (about $17 billion) each year to create an early learning and childcare system with greater affordability and higher capacity — an OECD benchmark that other countries have already surpassed.

There are crucial social and economic benefits to increased investment in this social infrastructure — not least of which is that affordable and accessible childcare has been proven to boost women’s participation in the labour force.

Even pre-pandemic, mothers still shouldered the majority of care work in Canada: They spent an average of 68 hours per week on childcare prior to the pandemic, and in the midst of it, this number rose to 95 hours. Fathers’ childcare hours increased as well — but only from 33 to 46 hours. Furthermore, BIPOC are more likely than those who are white to have had to give up looking for paid work in order to carry out this increase in unpaid work.

Affordable care would lighten this care burden for women, especially BIPOC women, and facilitate their return to paid work. And importantly, this would translate into better economic outcomes across society: It is estimated that each additional percentage point of labour force participation for women aged 25 to 54 adds $1.85 billion to Canada’s GDP.

An increased investment in the care sector would also create much-needed jobs. One study from the UK showed that investing 1% of a country’s GDP in childcare would create almost three times more jobs than an equivalent investment in construction. Care jobs are also ‘green’ jobs: The care sector does not contribute heavily to carbon emissions or environmental damage. Instead, it contributes to a healthy population with educated children.

Investment in universal childcare could further ensure that care workers are better paid and protected, which would draw more people into the sector and result in higher–quality care for children. Currently these workers, many of whom are women and/or BIPOC, make an average of between $25,000 and $37,000 a year, despite the fact that the services they provide are essential to a functioning economy.

Enduring systemic racism in Canada means that BIPOC of all genders need targeted recovery policies. BIPOC have made up a disproportionate number of COVID-19 cases: In Toronto, they comprised 83 per cent of cases despite representing about half of the population. Part of the reason for this, and for why BIPOC are now facing relatively high unemployment rates and financial insecurity, is because they are more likely to hold low-income, unprotected jobs that lead to vulnerability, such as cleaning and personal support work.

They also experience limited access to opportunities and services that many mistakenly believe are equally available to everyone, from healthcare to housing, and early learning and childcare are no exceptions here. Indigenous children face numerous barriers to accessing quality early learning programs. There is a lack of funding and infrastructure for Indigenous child care, particularly in remote communities, as well as a lack of cultural relevancy within these services. Black parents have reported that their children experience racial profiling and other discrimination in early learning and throughout their schooling. Black and Indigenous students in the school system are disproportionately expelled or suspended compared to other students.

A national affordable childcare system will boost our economy and contribute to gender equality. But it will not rotmanmagazine.ca / 109

Enduring systemic racism in Canada means that BIPOC of all genders need targeted recovery policies.

be fully effective if BIPOC parents are not able to access this service because it does not meet the needs of those in underserved areas. Nor will it be fully effective if BIPOC children continue to experience discrimination within it. And it will not be fully effective if new jobs are created, but employment discrimination keeps BIPOC women at the bottom of the ranks of the sector.

The implementation of anti-racist training and policies across the system, as well as ensuring targeted services and funding for BIPOC communities, are some ways to address these problems within a new national childcare program.

Following are four steps that leaders across industries can take to advocate for this critical issue: 1. Advocate for policies on anti-racism and flexibility for all caregivers within your workplace.

2. Partner with or support organizations working toward racial equity, affordable childcare and/or equitable recovery from the pandemic.

3. Learn more about how childcare responsibilities and systemic racism pose significant and intersecting barriers for the careers of your employees, clients or others you work with, especially if they are women and/or BIPOC. 4. Keep apprised of the government’s Canada-wide childcare plan. Have conversations about why it’s important within your networks and in your workplace.

Policy solutions to the gender inequality that has arisen from the pandemic require commitment and action to ensure that all forms of discrimination, including racial discrimination, are tackled head-on. Without this lens, we risk implementing solutions that continue to leave people behind.

Although understanding of the need for a feminist recovery is growing, there is still a long way to go. The most recent Federal budget is a major step forward with its support for affordable childcare and other measures for an equitable recovery. However, it remains important to remember that fiscal and monetary policy should not just focus on job recovery numbers and GDP, as these may not paint the full pic110 / Rotman Management Fall 2021

ture of a resilient recovery. We need to see that the jobs that come back are providing decent work and that GDP is being distributed equitably. We also need to look to indicators that signify different kinds of progress. For example, are poverty rates being reduced? How are we valuing the unpaid and paid care work that is disproportionately done by women?

And are rates of gender-based violence decreasing?

In closing

As countries and organizations around the world set out to build back better, governments and leaders must understand that unless their recovery policies centre on those who have been most impacted — particularly women, girls, Two-Spirit and gender-diverse people and BIPOC — any recovery will be ineffective, because it will not address the key inequities that have been laid bare during this crisis.

This time has been one of profound change and uncertainty. The question remains, will it also be a time of transformation? Leaders everywhere must ask themselves what they want their legacy to be. For me and my colleagues at GATE, a society and economy grounded in care and community point the only way forward.

Carmina Ravanera is a Research Associate at the Institute for Gender

and the Economy (GATE) at the Rotman School of Management.

This article is an adapted excerpt from her chapter in Essays on Equality co-authored with Anjum Sultana, published by the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at Kings College London and her article in Careering Magazine. Carmina is the co-author of A Feminist Economic Recovery Plan for Canada: Making the Economy Work for Everyone (available online.)

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