Three Important Canadian Feminist Moments

Feminists’ Complex Responses to Guaranteed Annual Income and Basic Income

Authors

Keywords:

poverty, anti-poverty, Basic Income, feminist movement, Royal Commission on the Status of Women, National Action Committee on the Status of Women, Wages for Housework

Abstract

The Canadian feminist movement has been weak in its current support of the Basic Income campaign. In order to understand why the feminist movement has been reluctant to embrace the current campaign for Basic Income as a fundamental policy to improve women’s lives, this paper addresses three important moments when an earlier version of Basic Income was part of the national conversation. In particular, this paper will address: The Royal Commission on the Status of Women (RCSW), 1967-1970; the Purge of Wages for Housework in the National Action Committee on the Status of Women (NAC) in 1979; and the NAC rejection of Mothers are Women’s demand of government support for stay-at-home moms, 1987. Each of these historic moments included a conversation about the Canadian state providing payments for the unpaid caring work that women did. Through archival research and oral history interviews we illustrate that during these moments prominent feminists and their organizations were reluctant or opposed to supporting government payments for this unpaid caring work. These three important historic moments help explain why current feminists are reluctant to fully embrace the national campaign for Basic Income today.

Author Biographies

Margaret Hillyard Little, Queen's University

Margaret Hillyard Little is a professor in the Departments of Gender Studies and Political Studies at Queen’s University. She has published books and articles on the history of and the current issues facing Canadian social policies regarding poverty, retraining and housing. Most recently she has published articles on low-income, racialized and/or immigrant women activists in Canada from the 1960s-1980s. 

Lynne Marks, University of Victoria

Professor, Department of History

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Published

2025-12-30

How to Cite

Little, M., & Marks, L. (2025). Three Important Canadian Feminist Moments: Feminists’ Complex Responses to Guaranteed Annual Income and Basic Income . Canadian Review of Social Policy Revue Canadienne De Politique Sociale, 83. Retrieved from https://crsp.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/crsp/article/view/40426

Issue

Vol. 83 (2025)

Section

Articles

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