LabFam seminar series -Parenthood, gender and the risks and consequences of job loss: Pre and post-pandemic patterns in Canada.
Speaker: Sylvia Fuller, Professor Arts | Sociology
Academic Director British Columbia Inter-University Research Data Centre
The University of British Columbia | Vancouver Campus | Musqueam Traditional Territory
Job loss can be difficult to navigate for individuals and their families, and is an increasingly salient concern in the COVID-19 pandemic. This talk draws on forthcoming research to illuminate the relationship between gender, parental status, and job loss prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. Pooled data from Statistics Canada’s Workplace and Employee
Survey from 1999-2005 reveals the extent to which intersections of gender and parental status are associated with pre-pandemic risks of job loss and its consequences: re-employment, unemployment, and quality of new jobs relative to those that were lost. We find that parenthood
reduces the probability of job loss for prime-age men with young children, but only when employer discretion is involved. Despite similar risks of job loss relative to other groups, mothers of young children are the least likely to be re-employed in the subsequent year, mainly because of their higher levels of labour market withdrawal rather than unemployment. Holding
out for “family friendly” work arrangements does not seem to account for this pattern. Job loss dynamics thus not only reflect but also reinforce asymmetrical breadwinning and caring roles for mothers and fathers of preschool-aged children. Labour Force Survey Data over the course of the
pandemic also reveal asymmetrical effects for mothers and fathers that magnify gender differences in employment among parents.
About the speaker: Sylvia’s research interests are Work and Labour, Inequality, Gender, Social Policy. Her research centres on understanding the dark side of labour markets – inequality and insecurity. Most of us rely on paid employment to get by. However, we do not always work on equal terms, or in ways that provide adequate economic security. Sylvia is interested in understanding how entrenched patterns of inequality in the labour market develop and erode, and in the implications of changing employment relations for workers’ prospects for security and mobility.