Description:
The latest in the series of Stats & Facts fact sheets: A Profile of the Labour Market in Canada is comprised of three fact sheets containing national and provincial data about employment, earnings and labour force rates.
Findings in the Families section include:
41.4% of family types in Canada are married with children at home and 12.7% are female lone-parent in contrast to 29.0% married with no children at home and 2.9% male lone-parent, respectively.
In 2003/04, there were only enough regulated child care spaces to accommodate 15.5% of Canadian children aged 0 to 12.
Between 2001 and 2003/04, 151,824 new child care spaces were created and of those, 87,000 spaces - or 57.3% - were generated in Quebec. In fact, by 2003/04, 43% of all regulated child care spaces in Canada were in Quebec, up from 40% in 2001.
In 2003, almost 72% of Canadian mothers with children under age 16 were in the labour force working either full- or part-time. Over the last decade, the percentage of mothers in the workforce has increased steadily, particularly among women with children under age 3. In 1993, 55.1% of women with children under 3 were employed, and by 2003, this had climbed to 63.4%.
Overall, women with preschool-aged children are less likely to be employed than those with school-aged children. In 2003, 65.6% of women with children under age 6 were employed, compared with 76.5% of women with children aged 6 to 15.
Raising a child can be an expensive undertaking, with the first year being the most expensive. In 2004, over $10,000 was needed to raise a child to age 1. Parents spent the least amount of money &em; close to $7,000 &em; when their children reached age 12.