Employment Facts
Employment Insurance                                    
Updated September 2009

Unemployed women tend to have less access to EI in comparison to men.[1] The gender difference increased with the introduction of the EI Act in 1996.

• In 1990, prior to the introduction of the EI Act, 69% unemployed female workers received EI benefits when they lost their jobs. By 2004, only 32% of received benefits.[2]
  
  
• After the implementation of the EI Act, women were eight percentage points less likely to have had enough hours of work to qualify for EI. Men were unaffected.[3]
  
  
• Less than half (42.8%) of unemployed part-timer workers qualified for EI in 2004.[4] Women account for about 7 out of 10 part-time employees.[5]
  
  
• Currently two in every three working women who pay into EI will not receive benefits if they lose their jobs.[6]

EI Restrictions Often Affect Women with Dependent Children

• The population least likely to qualify for EI is also the group most likely to have young children – women aged 25-44 years.[6] Almost three quarters of employed women have children under the age of 16.[7]
  
  
• Single mothers make up about one-third of NERES, new workers or people returning to the workforce after a two-year or more absence.[8] NEREs are much less likely than other workers to qualify for benefits.[9] With the EI Act, men who are fathers and are NEREs are more likely to qualify than in the past; however, women who are NEREs and mothers, especially single-mothers, are less likely to qualify.[10]

Gender Differences in Forms of EI Received

• Men are much more likely than women to receive regular EI benefits: 84% of men receiving EI are accessing regular benefits, in comparison with 50% of women recipients.[11]
  
  
• Women are much less likely than men to receive EI training benefits. Until recent years, approximately one-third of EI training recipients in Ontario were women. However, since 2005, women's EI training participation rates have declined. By 2008, only 21% of EI trainees were women, the lowest number for the province on record.[12]
  
  
• While women are less likely than men to be unemployed,[13] in recent years a larger proportion of EI claims are going to women (53%).[14] This trend has been attributed to women's access of maternity or parental benefits.[15] Forty percent of women claiming EI are on maternity or parental leaves, while only 2% of men access parental benefits.[16]
  
  
• Fourteen percent of all women eligible for EI also qualify for the Family Supplement claim, in comparison with 4% of men.[17] The Family Supplement tops-up EI payments to unemployed parents with net family incomes of $25,921 or less.[18] Two thirds of all Family Supplement recipients are women.[19]

Difficulties Accessing Maternity and Parental Benefits

• In 2004, more than one of three women with newborns did not qualify for maternity or parental benefits.[20] Most women who do not qualify were self-employed, or had not worked for two years or more.[21]
  
  
• Claimants of maternity or parental benefits must work 600 hours in the previous 52 weeks.[22] Because women are more likely to work part-time, they are less likely than men to qualify for parental benefits.[23]
  
  
• In 2003, more than one woman in ten was self-employed.[24] With the exception of Quebec, self-employed workers do not qualify for maternity or parental benefits. Quebec offers a plan to self-employed women who are required to contribute to the Quebec Parental Insurance Plan (QPIP).[25]

EI Benefits are Not Adequate for Women’s Circumstances

• In 2004, almost one-third of regular EI beneficiaries exhausted their entitlement to EI benefits.[26] Women tend to exhaust EI benefits in higher proportions than men because they are more likely to work part-time and therefore receive fewer weeks of benefits.[27]
  
  
• On average, a woman makes 72 cents for every dollar a man makes.[28] Because wages determine the weekly financial benefits that EI claimants can receive, women on average receive less support than men.[29]
  
  
• Canada ranked sixth out of ten developing countries for maternity and parental benefits for new mothers who work part-time on average wages.[30]