What Do Women Know about Government Services ...

What Do Women Know about Government Services and Benefits? Elisabeth Gidengil, Dietlind Stolle

Canadian Public Policy, Volume 38, Number 1, March/mars 2012, pp. 31-54 (Article) Published by University of Toronto Press DOI: 10.1353/cpp.2012.0009

For additional information about this article http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/cpp/summary/v038/38.1.gidengil.html

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What Do Women Know about Government Services and Benefits?


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Elisabeth Gidengil and Dietlind Stolle

Centre for the Study of Democratic Citizenship Department of Political Science McGill University, Montreal

Dans cet article, nous évaluons la connaissance qu’ont les femmes des services et des avantages offerts par différents programmes gouvernementaux, et nous présentons les raisons pour lesquelles posséder ce type de connaissances peut être important. En utilisant des données recueillies grâce à une enquête et à des groupes de discussion tenus à Montréal et à Toronto, nous montrons que les femmes qui sont susceptibles d’avoir le plus besoin d’informations sur ces programmes sont souvent celles qui ont le moins tendance à les connaître. Cela est particulièrement vrai des femmes à faible revenu, des femmes âgées et des femmes immigrées. Nous concluons en suggérant certaines actions qui pourraient contribuer à remédier à ces écarts de connaissances. Mots clés : connaissances politiques, connaissance des programmes gouvernementaux, écarts de connaissances This article examines how much women know about government services and benefits and discusses why this type of knowledge matters. Using data from a survey as well as focus groups conducted in Montreal and Toronto, we show that the women who are most likely to need information about these programs are often the least likely to be aware of them. This is especially true of low-income women, older women, and women who came to Canada as immigrants. We end by suggesting some steps that could be taken to address these knowledge gaps. Keywords: political knowledge, knowledge of government programs, knowledge gaps

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overnment spending accounts for almost 40 percent of Canada’s gross domestic product, and service provision constitutes a large proportion of what governments actually do (OECD 2010). Yet political scientists have paid remarkably little attention to how much citizens actually know about government services and programs. This is unfortunate. As scholars of policy feedback have argued, this type of knowledge can be consequential:

“Government policies can play a crucial role in … shaping the things publics believe and want, the way citizens view themselves and others, and how they understand and act toward the political system” (Mettler and Soss 2004, 55). This article focuses on women’s knowledge of government services and programs. Despite changing conceptions of gender roles, women still

Canadian Public Policy – Analyse de politiques, vol. xxxviii, no. 1 2012

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32 Elisabeth Gidengil and Dietlind Stolle bear the main responsibility for caregiving (Bianchi et al. 2000; Dayer 2005; Maume 2008; Sayer 2005). It is thus particularly important that women be aware of programs and services that can facilitate this role. Drawing on a survey of women in Montreal and Toronto, as well as focus group discussions, our research sets out to answer two key questions: How much do women in these two cities know about government services and programs? And how much difference does a woman’s social background make to what she knows? Are those women who are most in need of this information the most likely to be well informed? We focus on two groups of women: those who came to Canada as immigrants, and lowincome women.

Why Knowledge of Government Programs and Services Matters Scholars of policy feedback have highlighted a variety of ways in which policies can influence citizens’ self-conceptions as political actors, their propensity to participate in politics, and their ability to hold governments accountable. There is evidence, for example, that benefiting from government programs can motivate people to become more active politically (see, for example, Campbell 2003; Mettler 2002; Mettler and Stonecash 2008), whether from a desire to protect those programs or from an enhanced sense of the responsiveness of the political system and its relevance to their daily lives (see Mettler and Soss 2004; Mettler and Stonecash 2008).1 As such, receipt of benefits has the potential to compensate for factors like a low income or a lack of education that tend to depress political participation. However, this levelling effect could be impeded if potential beneficiaries are unaware of their entitlements. Policies also convey important messages to target groups about “political identities, possibilities, and realities.… Personal experiences with public policy can provide lessons about group status, government

responsiveness, and the efficacy and wisdom of exercising one’s voice as a citizen” (Bruch, Ferree, and Soss 2010, 3). If members of the target population are unaware of the very existence of programs and services intended for their benefit, the messages that they absorb are likely to be negative. Not knowing what governments do could lead citizens to conclude that governments are disregarding the needs of certain groups and failing to address important social problems. Political distrust and government dissatisfaction might be the result (Mortimore 2003). Governments also have more incentive to be responsive to people’s needs for various types of services when they can be held accountable, but citizens can only hold their governments to account if they know what their governments are actually doing. As Pierson (1993) has emphasized, policies are an important source of cues about government performance and how well governments are responding to citizens’ needs. Again, though, the feedback effect of public policy is necessarily mediated by knowledge. To the extent that awareness of government programs and services has important implications for the frequency and effectiveness of political engagement, political scientists clearly need to pay more attention to what citizens do—and do not—know about these services. But finding out what people know about the programs and services offered by various levels of government is also important for those who make and administer policies. They need to know whether the necessary information is reaching the target recipients. If the intended beneficiaries are unaware of the services or misinformed about their key features, implementation will be impeded. Lack of public awareness and misinformation have been identified as key reasons for the low utilization of the credit-splitting provisions of the Canada Pension Plan upon separation or divorce.2 Lower earnings and time out from the workforce



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What Do Women Know about Government Services and Benefits? mean that women typically have more to gain from credit splitting than their ex-husbands, yet 43 percent of divorced or separated women in an online survey had no knowledge of this provision (Easton 2009). Studies conducted in the United States have also found that the potential beneficiaries are often unaware of various government services and benefits. For example, low-income immigrants and other people with very low incomes were the least likely to know about the federal Earned Income Tax Credit, even though they were among its target beneficiaries (Phillips 2001; see also Caputo 2006). A study of families with chronically ill children found that many welfare recipients were unaware of their entitlement to health-related work exemptions and extensions to the five-year lifetime limit for receiving benefits (Smith, Wise, and Wampler 2002). Similarly, a study of a predominantly female sample of parents whose children were potentially eligible for Medicaid found that many respondents were uninformed or misinformed about the eligibility rules (Stuber and Bradley 2005). Finally, beneficiary knowledge of Medicare and Medicare-managed care proved to be lowest among the most vulnerable beneficiaries (Uhrig et al. 2006). The non-take-up of social benefits is widely regarded as a problem in the welfare state literature. Indeed, some argue that the underuse of programs is at least as important as their abuse (Dahan and Nisan 2010; Kayser and Frick 2000). Non-take-up is problematic for a number of reasons: it implies a failure in program design or implementation; it leads to injustice when some claim and others do not; and it increases the risk of poverty. The fact that certain government programs and benefits are not being used to their fullest extent has many causes (Bansak and Raphael 2007; Remler and Glied 2003), but lack of awareness of what services governments provide is clearly an important factor (Dahan and Nisan 2006; Remler and Glied 2003). We thus need to explore how much potential beneficiaries know about the availability of various government programs and services in Canada.

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Data and Methods Our analysis draws on both quantitative and qualitative data. The quantitative data are derived from a 27-minute telephone interview with 1,286 women living in Toronto and Montreal, conducted on behalf of Status of Women Canada. The interviews were conducted by the Institute for Social Research at York University in the period between 11 November 2005 and 23 April 2006, using a computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) procedure and random digit dialing (RDD). While the survey offers only a snapshot of the state of women’s knowledge of government programs and benefits at a single point in time, these data can provide important insights into how this knowledge is distributed. Respondents were randomly sampled from 42 neighbourhoods in the two cities. Neighbourhoods were selected as the sampling units in order to ensure that the sample included sufficient numbers of foreign-born and low-income women. In the case of Toronto, neighbourhoods are defined by the city; in Montreal, we relied on the definitions developed by a Statistics Canada research team (Ross, Tremblay, and Graham 2004). In selecting the neighbourhoods, we paid particular attention to representing four different contexts: poorer/ diverse, poorer/homogeneous, richer/diverse, and richer/homogeneous. The rich-poor dimension was measured by median household income. The diversity-homogeneity dimension was measured by the share of immigrants and by the ethno-racial heterogeneity of the neighbourhood. 3 The neighbourhoods were classified into quintiles, based on the share of residents born outside Canada; within each quintile, neighbourhoods below and above the median household income and below and above the median heterogeneity score were selected. We also ensured that the neighbourhoods were spread throughout the entire geographic area of the city. The survey questions focused on housing, health, rights and protection, tax credits, and employment



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34 Elisabeth Gidengil and Dietlind Stolle benefits (see the Appendix for the question wording). Most of the questions were multiple-choice. This format avoids the problems that can arise in coding open-ended knowledge questions (Krosnick et al. 2008) and minimizes the possible impact of respondents’ differential propensity to guess (Mondak 2001). Following Prior and Lupia (2008), “don’t know” responses were neither encouraged nor discouraged.4 The qualitative data are derived from four focus groups, two in Montreal and two in Toronto, which took place in July and August 2005. The purpose of the focus groups was to get a deeper understanding of the barriers that women experience in accessing information about government programs and benefits. The focus group data complement the survey responses by illustrating the gaps in women’s knowledge, as well as the implications of their lack of awareness of the available services and benefits. The participants were divided into four groups of about ten women each: low-income women with children, low-income women with no children, middle-income women with children, and middleincome women with no children. 5 Each group included both minority and non-minority women. The moderator guide for the focus group discussions was established in collaboration with the authors, and contained several questions about various services and programs, organized around themes such as housing, health, rights and protection, tax credits, and employment benefits.

Findings Housing Shelter is one of the most basic human needs, but for women living in poverty in Canada’s major cities it can be a struggle to find affordable housing. According to the 2006 Census, 38 percent of Montreal households and 46 percent of Toronto households spend 30 percent or more of their income on rent.6 It is important that women who are renting their

homes know their rights and know where to turn when they have a housing complaint. Almost three-quarters of the women who were renting their homes knew where to go to contest a rent increase (the Ontario Rental Housing Tribunal or the Regie du logement; see Figure 1). However, they were surprisingly uninformed about the maximum legal rent increase. Barely a quarter of the women gave a response that was even close and only one in ten got the answer right.7 Five percent of women believed that increases of 10 percent or more were permissible. It was clear from the focus groups, too, that most of the women believed that substantial rent increases were generally permissible. This is worrying since it suggests that many women renting accommodation in Canada’s two largest cities could be in a vulnerable position vis-à-vis their landlords. In the focus groups, we asked women what they would do or what they had done in the case of a rent increase. Very few of the women had actually appealed a rent increase. Most stated that they would either pay the increase or move out. Corinne moved out of her apartment when her rent increased too much. In retrospect, she feels she should have appealed the increase, but at the time she thought the increase was “normal.” Fernande, a retired grandmother from Montreal, pays an increase on her rent every year. She trusts her landlord that this is the maximum amount allowed. Because she does not consider herself a “battailleuse,” or the kind of woman who is good at putting up a fight, she says that if her rent ever reaches a point where she is no longer able to pay, she will move out. Emy and Amina, both students, have also moved out of an apartment after large increases in their rent. Those women in the focus groups who knew how to appeal a rent increase were pessimistic regarding the success of an appeal, especially if they were fighting it alone. Anne-Marie had lived in her apartment for ten years and was contesting a rent increase as part of her building’s tenants’ association at the



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Figure 1

Knowledge of Government Services and Benefits Rental board (renters only) Rent increase (renters only) Human rights commission Legal aid Domestic violence Child abuse Mammogram (age 50 and over) Pap test (under 50) Elder care (age 40 to 70) GST tax credit Child tax credit Minimum wage (up to age 70) Employment Insurance (up to age 70) EI eligibility (up to age 70) Maternity/parental leave Compassionate care leave (up to age 70) 0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Notes: The bars indicate the percentage of women who knew the correct answer to questions about specific government benefits and services. The targeted age groups are shown in parentheses. N = 1,286. Source: Boosting Women’s Political Resources Survey (2005/2006).

time of the focus group session. Like several of the other women, she claims she would only contest a rent increase if there were other tenants involved: Since I’m not doing it by myself, I might be successful. If I was on my own, I don’t think I would stand a chance.… If I wanted to stay there, I’d probably end up paying [the increase]. And if I didn’t want to pay, I’d just move out. But I’ve lived there for ten years so I consider it my own.

Rights and Protection Housing is an area where women may experience discrimination, especially if they belong to a racialized minority or have young children (Dion 2001; Khosla 2008; Novac et al. 2002). Accordingly, women need to know what to do if they experience discrimination.

Three-quarters of the women surveyed answered correctly that their provincial human rights commission was the best place to lodge a complaint if someone was refused an apartment and thought it was because of her racial background. Few of the focus group participants, though, had a firm understanding of the institution. Corinne, from Montreal, for example, “would check into human rights on the Internet, because there are lawyers who work, who are paid by the government to defend people. But that’s more nebulous. I would not know exactly what to do with that.” Emy recognized the name of the commission, but knew nothing more than that. Knowing where to turn if you are unable to afford a lawyer is another important piece of information. The majority of the women surveyed knew about



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36 Elisabeth Gidengil and Dietlind Stolle legal aid. So, too, did most of the women in the focus groups. However, there was a good deal of confusion among the focus group participants regarding the process and the cost of legal aid, and a number of them felt that it would be a waste of time. Anne Marie would not turn to legal aid even though she had used the service in the past: They’d rather leave … [me and my child] in poverty than force … [my ex] to pay when he had a job.… And then I went to apply again and then they said that “Well, now, single moms, we don’t cover that anymore, you’ll have to pay for your lawyer or a percentage or something,” so I just didn’t bother. Finally, the survey asked women what someone should do if she finds herself in an abusive relationship or suspects that a child is being abused.8 Half of the women chose going to the police (51 percent) and another third selected a women’s shelter (31 percent) as the best option for someone living in a physically abusive relationship. Eleven percent recommended going to friends and family while 3 percent suggested that the woman deal with the abuse on her own. Five percent of the women did not know what to do in case of abuse. The women in the focus groups responded very strongly to this portion of the discussion. Many had either experienced abusive relationships or been in very close contact with someone who was abused. When asked what they would do in this situation, it was common for women to mention all of the above options, as in the case of Emy: “I would report it to the police. If I was married I would divorce. I would live with my parents who could help me in this transition, and I would also ask for help at a women’s shelter.” The literature indicates that calls for help in situations of abuse are sometimes not made to the police because citizens do not trust the police or are fearful of approaching the authorities, or because they feel that their experiences will not be believed and that their abusers will not be punished (Akers and Kaukinen 2009; Lin 2005). A number of

the women in the focus groups did, indeed, worry that the police response would be inadequate. Several based this belief on personal experience. For example, Cory, who had been badly beaten by her partner and initially found little help from the police, advised going straight to the hospital if it were to happen again, because “if the hospital calls and says ‘Look, this person is being abused, she needs to get out,’” the police are more likely to take it seriously. A number of the women also voiced fear of what the man would do if he found out, especially if the police response was not serious or prompt enough to help the woman leave the situation. Still, there was a consensus in the group that improvements are underway and even Michelle, who was particularly vocal regarding police inaction, would call the police. Just over two-thirds of the women surveyed selected Children’s Aid/Directeur de la protection de la jeunesse (DPJ) as the best place to go if they knew of a child being abused. Many of the women in the focus groups had some experience with Children’s Aid or the DPJ, either personally through foster care, through friends or family, or through their jobs, and most of the focus group participants mentioned contacting Children’s Aid or the DPJ when asked the best thing to do. Montrealer Rose-Marie’s response was typical: “I would turn to either the police or the DPJ, depending on the time, and also Info-Santé because I know that you can call them and they have phone numbers and resources to refer you to.”

Health Services Awareness of services and programs is also important when it comes to matters of health. One in nine Canadian women can be expected to develop breast cancer during her lifetime, making breast cancer the most common cancer to afflict women in Canada. A total of 23,400 Canadian women were diagnosed with breast cancer in 2011 and 5,100 died (Canadian Cancer Society 2011). According to the Canadian Cancer Society, the mortality rate might be reduced by almost one-third if most women between the ages of 50 and 69 had regular mammograms and/or



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What Do Women Know about Government Services and Benefits? clinical breast examinations. It is thus encouraging that 84 percent of the women aged 50 years and older were aware that mammograms are free under their provincial health plans. Women under 50 were asked a parallel question about screening for cervical cancer. Regular Pap testing is credited with reducing both the incidence of cervical cancer and mortality rates by half or more over the past 30 years. Yet only 71 percent of the Montreal and Toronto women interviewed were aware that a Pap test is free under their provincial health plan. Compared to breast cancer, the incidence of cervical cancer is much lower and so is the number of deaths: an estimated 1 in 150 women will develop cervical cancer during her lifetime, and 1 in 423 will die of it (Public Health Agency of Canada 2010). As a result, cervical cancer receives much less publicity. Still, it is disturbing that over a quarter of the women under the age of 50 did not know that this simple test is freely available. This also has disturbing implications for the number of women who are having regular gynecological check-ups since a Pap test is a routine part of the examination. Surprisingly, even among those who knew that the test is free, 13 percent of women under the age of 50 had never had a test themselves, even though it is recommended for women who have ever had sexual intercourse. Women aged 40 and up were also asked about the best place to go for assistance if someone wanted to arrange for an elderly relative to get care in their home. Almost two-thirds of the women knew that a community care access centre (CCAC)/centre local de services communautaires (CLSC) was the best place to turn. However, this figure masks a striking difference between the two cities. Only 47 percent of the Toronto women answered correctly, compared to 86 percent in Montreal. As one of the Montreal focus group participants declared, “Everyone knows the CLSC!” Several of the participants mentioned the sorts of services that could be arranged through the CLSC: providing walkers and crutches, giving baths and injections, housecleaning, and meals.

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Taxes Canadians receive a variety of tax credits and benefits from their federal and provincial governments. Besides the Canada Child Tax Benefit and the Goods and Services Tax (GST) credit, benefits include the property tax refund in Quebec, disability tax credits, and deductions covering medical and child-care expenses. Women seem to be relatively well informed about tax benefits. Nearly three-quarters of the women knew about the GST tax credit, and even more knew about the Canada Child Tax Benefit. Similarly, it was evident from the focus group discussions that many of the women knew about the main credits and benefits available to women in their position. While they often did not know their exact names, they were at least aware of the types of programs that exist. Marie-Claude, a single mother, was aware of the credits available to low-income mothers: [There are] federal and provincial child tax benefits, the “a part” program which I don’t participate in because I have not yet returned to work. There is also the GST that gives an amount for children.… Also, daycare is $7, but for me, because I am on social assistance, [the government] pays for half of it. [There is also] a credit for nursing mothers and social assistance pays for milk for the baby. However, few of the Montreal participants knew about the property tax rebate available in Quebec for renters, and no one mentioned deductions for prescription drugs or other medical expenses.

Employment Women are much more likely than men to be working in jobs that pay only the minimum wage as stipulated in provincial employment standards legislation.9 This partly reflects gendered patterns of employment: women are more likely than men to be working in the service sector where minimum wage work tends to be most prevalent. Women are also more likely to be working part time, and part-time jobs are much more likely to pay only minimum wage. Yet only 37 percent of the working age women interviewed could be considered well informed



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38 Elisabeth Gidengil and Dietlind Stolle about the minimum wage in their province.10 Most of the others either underestimated the minimum wage or said that they did not know. One of the striking findings from our focus group discussions was the lack of familiarity with the various benefits that are available to working people under the Employment Insurance (EI) program. The survey revealed a similar lack of awareness. Notably, only 41 percent of the working age women answered that if they were laid off, they would receive a maximum of 55 percent of their salary in unemployment benefits, even though the question used a multiplechoice format. They were somewhat better informed, though, when it came to knowing that people who leave their job voluntarily are not entitled to receive Employment Insurance benefits. Almost two-thirds of the women answered this question correctly. Women are often the main caregivers in the household and, as such, can potentially benefit from two important EI programs. The compassionate care benefit was first implemented in January 2004. It offers special paid leave and job security for eligible employees to take care of a sick or dying relative. Even though the question was multiple-choice, barely a quarter of the working age women chose the correct answer when asked how many weeks of compassionate care benefits a person working full time can receive from the government to take care of a seriously ill relative (six weeks). Women of childbearing age appeared to be more knowledgeable when it came to how many months of maternity and parental leave benefits a woman can receive from the government if she is working full time. Still, it is hardly cause for complacency when as many as 29 percent were apparently unaware that benefits last for about a year.

Knowledge Gaps Indeed, from a policy point of view, the numbers are cause for concern. There were only four questions out of 16 where more than three-quarters of the women at whom the policy or benefit was targeted were able to come up with the correct response, and

there were four questions where not even half could answer correctly.11 There is even more concern if the women who most need to know about particular services and programs are the least likely to have that information, a question to which we now turn. Women who come to Canada as immigrants have to confront the challenge of settling into an unfamiliar environment. Perhaps more than any other group of women, they need to be informed about government services and benefits. It is clear, though, that this vital information is not reaching many of the immigrant women residing in the country’s two largest metropolitan areas, home to almost half of the country’s foreign-born residents.12 The women who came to Canada as immigrants were significantly less knowledgeable than the Canadian-born women about a variety of government programs and services (see Figure 2). The most striking knowledge deficit relates to awareness of where to go to contest a rent increase. What makes this particularly disturbing is that immigrants are more likely than the Canadian born to be spending half or more of their income on rent, especially if they are recent arrivals (Statistics Canada 2006a). In other words, the women who could benefit the most from knowing what constitutes an unreasonable rent increase and how to contest it are the least likely to have this information. It is also troubling that the women who may be most likely to experience discrimination based on their country of origin or their ethno-cultural background were significantly less likely to know that their provincial human rights commission handles complaints about discriminatory treatment. Other notable knowledge gaps relate to legal aid, child protection, the GST tax credit, arranging elder care, and the fact that screening tests for cervical cancer are available free of charge. The gaps between Canadian-born and foreignborn women were much smaller (and mostly failed to attain conventional levels of statistical significance) for employment-related programs and benefits. There is still cause for concern, though,



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Figure 2

Knowledge Gaps between Canadian-Born and Foreign-Born Women Rental board (renters only)*** Elder care (age 40 to 70)*** Pap test (under 50)*** Child abuse*** Human rights commission*** Legal aid*** GST tax credit*** Rent increase (renters only)** Maternity/parental leave (under 40) Minimum wage (up to age 70)* Employment Insurance (up to age 70) Domestic violence Mammogram (age 50 and over) Child tax credit Compassionate care leave (up to age 70) EI eligibility (up to age 70) 0

5

10

15

20

25

30

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Notes: The bars indicate the percentage point gaps in knowledge about specific government benefits and services between foreignborn and Canadian-born women. The targeted age groups are shown in parentheses. N = 1,286. ***p