SUGGESTED ESSAY TOPICS
1. Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, Math (STEM): What is the current status in Canada? Why is this topic important in the field of women and economics?
2. STEM: What are the systemic barriers facing women in STEM—once in the subjects and also prior to entering the fields? What changes need to be made?
3. Occupational segregation: underlying gender and racial ideologies that legitimate such segregation and pro-active policies to change discrimination (suggestion: focus on a particular sector or level). 4. Pay equity laws in Canada: What are the various types? Importance for all workers? 5. 1987 CN Railway Case and its implications for women workers in non-traditional fields. 6. The need for universal childcare in Canada: how will having universal childcare fundamentally change women’s relationship to the economy and paid labour specifically?
7. Unionization of service workers in Canada (pick a specific sector and province): necessity of organizing and implications on women service workers.
8. Importance of paid maternity leave for women workers; Canadian focus with attention to global need.
9. Sexual harassment in the workplace: select a specific sector or form of harassment to focus—example women in non-traditional careers; racist sexual harassment of women workers, etc.
10. The gendered and raced wage gap in Canada.
11. Care giving work: gendered and raced realities of this work.
12. Wages for housework: investigation of the feminist move to formally recognize (monetarily) women’s housework.
13. Sex work: the work of sex work—focus on a specific sector and assessment of the type of work, value, status.
14. The invisibility of gender in classical economics. 15. Canada’s live-in caregiver program: raced and gendered labour. Implications? Benefits? Limitations? 16. The rise of precarious labour: exploring as a gendered and raced phenomenon in Canada. 17. The feminization of poverty in Canada: exploring as gendered and raced. What is the feminization of poverty? Causes? Implications?
Suggested Essay Topics D3
18. Labour and Migration: examining the gendered and raced nature of labour migration (vast topic; narrow down substantially and include Canadian research on the topic ).
19. Women as entrepreneurs: could focus globally and on micro-loans or nationally. Barriers? Benefits?
20. Social support for women workers: focus on importance of unions OR professional organizations.
