Gender Discrimination

A social determinant of health is defined as the social and economic factors that influence people’s health and are apparent in their everyday working and living conditions (“What are social determinants”, 2010) This short essay will examine the rights and equity of gender in Canada with an insight to the social determinants of men and women in Canada.

Woman are stated to experience increased adverse social determinants of health over men, with the women’s caregiving duty, coupled with their house hold duties given as the main factors. Woman are further less likely to enjoy unemployment benefits as they less often find themselves in full time employ. Women also suffer more discrimination in the workplace and occupy lower paying positions.

The wage disparity is across the board between men and women working fulltime/full year, with or without university degrees. Canada ranks only ahead of japan and Korea in gender wage gap of the 22 listed OECD nations (Mikkonen and Raphael,2010). Without improved and enforced pay equity legislation to better Canadian women’s plight, this gap will only grow wider.

Special attention is drawn to the plight of single woman raising young children split between their work opportunities and responsibility to their children. With affordable childcare services lacking in availability and quality, single woman are put further at risk towards the poverty line as this directly affects their employment scope.

When we analyze life expectancy between men and women, it is women with the greater expectancy. This is not all sweet smells and roses as it may sound. Women often struggle with chronic illness and long term disability over men, but men are more prone to accidents (go figure) and social exclusion. This social ostracism can fester into homelessness, substance abuse, and potentially suicide, with suicide stepping in at four times the rate of women (Mikkonen, et al.).

Men are deemed to be more negatively involved in theft and...