Gendering the Pension Promise in Canada: Risk, Financial Markets and Neoliberalism

Abstract

This article argues that retirement income provision in Canada is built on gendered assumptions, which produce material disadvantage for women. These inequalities are being exacerbated by current neoliberal trends towards the 'marketization' and individualization of pension provision, supported by tax, securities and corporate legal norms. The argument is developed using recent legislative changes to the operation of the Canada Pension Plan and recent developments in the regulation of mutual funds in Ontario as case studies. The article concludes by sketching out some possible points of departure for feminist interventions in pension privatization debates.

Women and Retirement Pensions: A Research Review

“…Their independence from employment history means that those with broken patterns of employment or few years of employment can establish an entitlement. Further, income tests suggest that those with relatively low incomes, a criterion that applies disproportionately to women, are more likely to benefit from these schemes (Condon 2001;Morissette and Drolet 2001;Gee, Ng, Weatherall, Liu, Leong, and Higgins 2002;Jefferson 2005). In effect, these schemes have a redistributive function.…”

“…Existing literature has discussed the specific features of the Australian, Canadian, and New Zealand schemes as relatively favorable to women (Mary Condon 2001;René Morissette and Marie Drolet 2001;Susan Gee, Sik Hung Ng, Ann Weatherall, Jim Liu, Cynthia Leong, and Te Ripowai Higgins 2002;Jefferson 2005). Their independence from employment history means that those with broken patterns of employment or few years of employment can establish an entitlement.…”

“…Policy shifts toward private capital accumulation accounts for pension provision in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand have been viewed as unfavorable to women, largely due to closer links with their employment histories and a lower element of redistribution toward those with lower incomes (Condon 2001;Morissette and Drolet 2001;Gee, Ng, Weatherall, Liu, Leong, and Higgins 2002;Jefferson 2005). In the UK, a second level of publicly administered pensions, the State Earnings Related Pension Scheme (SERPS), exists alongside the basic pension.…”

Accessing pension resources: the right to equality inside and out of the labour market

“…In the decades since the bedding-in of many contemporary pension systems in the 1940s and 1950s there have been at least two sets of processes, distinct from but intersecting with processes of financialisation and privatisation, individualisation and neoliberal welfare retrenchment, which have had implications for political, economic and legal discourses related to pension reform (see, for example, Blackburn, 2002; Clark, 2003; Condon, 2001; Strauss, 2009). One is the increased participation of women in wage labour and the related struggles to gain equal pay for equal work.…”

Gender, Risk and Micro‐financial Subjectivities

“…Fieldwork was carried out in 2006 and 2010, and methods included 7 months of living and working in Luribay, in‐depth interviews, two focus groups and participation in 40 village bank meetings. Using qualitative data from a long‐term ethnographic study enables more complex analysis of micro‐politics and resistance and how discourses of risk, responsibility and autonomy shape the “spaces of neoliberalism” (Chase 2002; Laurie and Bondi 2005). This paper aims to challenge the way the relationship between risk, responsibility and autonomy is generally conceptualised in relation to microfinance—and how these assumptions are challenged by the way it is used.…”