More women in Alberta applying for federal caregiver benefit compared to other provinces
Stephanie Dubois | CBC News | Posted: December 18, 2020 3:00 PM | Last Updated: December 18, 2020
Women more likely to leave their jobs than men in order to provide care, experts say
More women in Alberta have received federal caregiving aid per capita than in any other province, new data shows.
Experts say it's partially because many women are taking on more caregiving responsibilities during tough financial times for many Albertans.
"Because women still are seen as the natural caregivers, those sorts of impacts tend to fall more on women than men," said Janet Fast, professor in the University of Alberta's human ecology department.
About 66 per cent of the 34,700 Albertans who received money through the Canada recovery caregiving benefit (CRCB) were women, according to Dec. 6 federal data.
That's a higher percentage of women applicants to the CRCB program than in other provinces.
The $500 weekly benefit was introduced to support people forced to leave their jobs during the pandemic to care for a child under 12, for example, or a sick family member.
The program was one of three introduced after the CERB, the federal program that supported millions of Canadians during the pandemic, ended in October.
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Recent research points to a shift in more women taking on caregiving roles during the pandemic.
An online survey of Alberta family caregivers done by University of Alberta researchers in June and July found that of the 604 family caregivers who responded, 85 per cent identified as female.
That is higher than pre-pandemic national averages, with approximately 54 per cent of women in Canada taking on caregiver roles, according to 2018 Statistics Canada data.
Albertans' above-average application numbers for the federal caregiving aid is similar to what is found with other federal aid programs, like CERB and some of the business programs.
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Alberta has seen some of the highest unemployment rates in the country during the pandemic, forcing many Albertans to rely on federal aid.
Fast said it's not surprising that caregivers who identify as women are applying for some help during these tough times.
"There are all kinds of reasons why women are more disadvantaged by taking on care responsibilities. It makes sense that they would be the ones looking for some kind of compensation," she said.
"They're the ones that are more likely to leave their jobs, for example, in order to provide care; much more likely than men to do that and therefore need some kind of compensation."
The pandemic and the economic downturn caused by COVID-19 has affected women particularly hard, with many calling it a "she-cession" because of how female workers are bearing the brunt of job losses, unlike previous recessions.
That is often compounded when taking on more of the caregiving role.
"COVID has added on to that by making it even more complicated that the job that you had no longer exists and the demands of the person that you're caring for has increased or progressed and you need to be there more," said Bernie Travis, CEO of Early Onset Dementia Alberta Foundation.
The pandemic has brought forth "some of the gaping holes" in the caregiver system but Fast said she doesn't believe any changes will come anytime soon.
"I'm not all that optimistic that once we've got a grip on the pandemic and things start to go back to whatever the "new normal" is, that there will be massive changes," she said.
"I think that the budget imperatives, financial imperatives are probably going to override whatever policymakers may be thinking at this point in terms of reforms that might be needed or deserved."