Leave taken by working mothers of children aged 1 to 3, Outside Québec and in Québec, 2010
Notes:
Maternity benefits are available to women and men in Canada through employment insurance (EI). However, not everyone qualifies for EI.
Paid and unpaid leave are not mutually exclusive categories, therefore percentages don’t add to 100
Source: CICH graphic created using data adapted from Statistics Canada, Survey of Young Canadians, 2010. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-008-x/2012002/t/11697/tbl01-eng.htm – accessed March 20, 2017
More than half, 56%, of mothers with incomes below $30,000/year do not qualify for maternity/parental benefits in Canada, excluding Québec. In Québec that proportion is 14.6%1.
Among mothers living outside Québec who worked before the birth or adoption of their child, 90% took some form of leave.
That proportion was higher in Québec at 99.2%.
Working mothers in Québec were more likely than those outside Québec to have paid leave – 97.3% compared with 83.1%.
21% of working mothers took unpaid leave in both Quebec and outside Quebec.
Women in Québec took longer leaves than those outside of Québec – 48.4 weeks versus 43.6 weeks.1
In Québec, 45.4 of these weeks were paid compared to 39.8 weeks for those outside of Québec.1