Committee’s Specific Goals

1. Mobilize feminist organizations in Quebec and Canada to execute a provincial awareness campaign on invisible work
   • Develop a common discourse to promote recognition of the value of invisible work;
   • Increase our power of influence to achieve more equitable distribution of tasks and responsibilities;
   • Develop inter-organizational partnerships.


2. Highlight the economic and social value of invisible work
   • Increase dissemination of information on the economic and social value of invisible work;
   • Obtain up-to-date gender-disaggregated statistics from public censuses;
   • Within two years, obtain declaration that the first Tuesday of April shall be National Invisible Work Day, from the governments of Quebec and Canada;
   • Within three years, obtain declaration that the first Tuesday of April shall be International Invisible Work Day, from the United Nations (UN).


3. Promote a better understanding of the issues surrounding invisible work among the public, employers, public institutions and decision-makers
   • Mobilize social stakeholders toward openness and dialogue for a new social contract.
   
   
4. Develop new solutions to balance the sharing of invisible tasks among women and men and the sharing of family, state and private sector responsibilities
   • Improve working and study conditions to facilitate the balancing of family responsibilities with social and political involvement;
   • Improve fiscal policies and measures to recognize the value of invisible work;
   • Integrate the notion of invisible work into the public education curriculum, from elementary school onwards, to promote the issue and raise awareness among young people, in order to deconstruct gender stereotypes and encourage more equitable sharing of responsibilities and tasks within households and society.

Committee’s Demands

1. Accounting for invisible work
   • Add a question regarding the calculation of hours of unpaid work to the long-form questionnaire for Canada’s census of population ;
   • Integrate the economic value of invisible work into Gross Domestic Product (GDP) calculations.


2. Recognition and importance
   • Government decree for National Invisible Work Day (by 2022);
   • UN recognition of International Invisible Work Day (by 2023);
   • Application of an intersectional gender-based analysis (GBA+) and its cross-functional integration, in relation to occupational profiles and the implementation and evaluation of government measures for the recognition of invisible work;
   • Integration of the issue of invisible work in the public education curriculum from elementary school onward to promote and raise awareness among young people;
   • Deconstruction of gender stereotypes and creation of incentives for more equitable sharing of responsibilities and tasks within households and society.


3. Economic, social and fiscal measures
   • Provide health services and supports to enable caregivers to carry out their role in a way that is safe for them and their loved ones;
   • Establish fair and equitable pension plan benefits (QPP and OAS) that take invisible work into consideration for parents and caregivers;
   • Introduce tax measures such as refundable (rather than non-refundable) tax credits, for parents and caregivers;
   • Introduce a benefit for all persons who give birth or adopt, paid by the Quebec Parental Insurance Plan;
   • Introduce a benefit paid by the Quebec Parental Insurance Plan, to be renamed the Quebec Parental and Caregiver Insurance Plan, for all caregivers who take work leave to help a family member, adult or child experiencing a loss of autonomy, illness or disability;
   • Maintain and strengthen access to universal, high-quality and free childcare;
   • Quantify the unpaid work done in family businesses in order for these workers to receive fair and equitable benefits from pension plans and other tax advantages;
   • Remunerate all internships that are required to earn a diploma, and ensure recognition of worker status for student interns⁶.


4. Family-work-study balance
   • Establish a policy for balancing family, work and study, including concrete measures in companies and institutions, to encourage:
     • changing social norms by encouraging men to assume more responsibilities within the family and household⁷;
     • women to return to or continue their studies despite their family, social or professional responsibilities, in order to gain access to more advantageous positions and contribute to more equity in the labour market and within companies.

Document notes

¹ Many women, for example, women farmers, work long hours in the family business without being paid or recognized as co-owners of the business. Yet they clearly contribute to the business and wealth creation for the family. They are nevertheless disadvantaged and more at risk of finding themselves in a precarious situation, for example in the event of divorce (or separation from a common-law spouse).

² Volunteerism plugs the gaps in the public system for many sectors essential to the smooth functioning of society. For example, volunteers who work in food banks for the homeless, support and settlement services for migrants, in women’s centers, etc., play an important role that is too often unrecognized and undervalued. This unpaid work represents less expenditure for the government and institutions. It should be better recognized by means of social, fiscal or other measures.

³ This is the situation in most traditionally female professions (teaching, health, services, etc.), in contrast to typically male professions where internships are generally paid. On this subject, see:

• Annelyne Roussel, 29 April 2019, “Stagiaires à boutte, stagiaires debouttes!” La Gazette des Femmes. https://gazettedesfemmes.ca/14847/stagiaires-a-boutte-stagiaires-debouttes/, retrieved 15 April 2020.
• Marie Boule, 22 March 2019. “La grève des stages est féministe.” Vice. https://www.vice.com/fr_ca/article/kzdjya/la-greve-des-stages-est-feministe?fbclid=IwAR0aIBwMcJpp-MtjngWu8BLEGZsnpY6UKahzlt2tCf2s1ZN_G_-kQtFSS5s, retrieved 22 April 2020.
• Sandrine Belley, Annabelle Berthiaume and Valérie Simard, “L’exploitation n’est pas une vocation! Pour la rémunération des stages et la fin du travail étudiant gratuity” in Camille Robert and Louise Toupin (eds) Travail invisible, Portraits d’une lutte féministe inachevée, Montréal: Éditions du remue-ménage, 2018.

⁴ “In 2015, a greater proportion of women performed housework than did men (89.9% versus 76.2%). Among those who participated in housework, women spent an average of 36 minutes more per day on that activity than did men (3.1 versus 2.5 hours).” Statistics Canada, 2018. Time use: Total work burden, unpaid work, and leisure https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/89-503-x/2015001/article/54931-eng.htm, Chart 3, retrieved 19 January 2021.

⁵ Oxfam-Québec, 19 January 2020. Les milliardaires du monde se partagent plus de richesses que 4,6 milliards de personnes. https://oxfam.qc.ca/inegalites-partage-richesse/, retrieved 14 April 2020.

⁶ “Remuneration for all internships would ensure interns the minimum protections enshrined in the Act respecting labour standards, with respect to working conditions and access to certain legal recourses. Worker status would also allow interns to organize among themselves, and possibly unionize, in order to establish a balance of power vis-à-vis their employers and negotiate their working conditions, especially pay. ” [Translation] From: http://www.grevedesstages.info/questions-et-reponses/retrieved 10 April 2020.

⁷ “Work-family balance measures are thought out for women, offered to women and used by women,” “Everything is in place to make women understand that child care and family well-being management—with the famous mental load that comes with it—is their responsibility first and foremost,” Marilyse Hamelin [Translation]. See Martine Letarte, 8 March 2018. “Comment en finir avec la division sexuelle des responsabilités parentales.” Le Devoir. https://www.ledevoir.com/societe/521410/en-finir-avec-la-division-sexuelle-des-responsabilites-parentales, retrieved 10 April 2020.