Long ago in the 1980s before the attention of nation's elites turned almost exclusively to the ups and downs of the stock market and the ins and outs of the leadership of a party whose name no-one can remember, there was considerable concern about the high rate of poverty among women. Now when we talk about poverty, it's about children's poverty as if children were poor on their own. Here's a news flash.
Women remain the poorest of the poor.
The success of the women's movement in moving middle class women closer to equality has had little impact on poor women. There has been almost no improvement in women's poverty since the Royal Commission on the Status of Women issued its report some 30 years ago. The Commission found almost 52 per cent of families with children headed by sole-support mothers were poor. Today, according to a report by economist Monica Townson, published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives 56 per cent of families with sole support mothers are poor. The solution of right-wing governments is to force single mothers into the work force as if their poverty is a result of some kind of moral deficit.