Muslim women leaders used census labor data to oppose faith-based arbitration

Evidence

The Canadian Council of Muslim Women, for example, armed with statistics from the 2001 census, declared that even though Muslim women were among the most highly educated in the country, they tended to work part-time and in low-paying jobs. Quoting statistics indicating that fewer separated Muslim women sought divorce than did separated women in the Canadian population, and that marriage breakdown for Muslim women between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four is higher than for other women of the same age group, the Council opined that these patterns could be attributed to higher than usual ‘cultural and economic pressures.’ Muslim women may in fact be persuaded to agree to arbitration under pressure, and the Arbitration Act did not contain safeguards to protect them from their families and communities. — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 348

Categorization

• SHARE: The specific demographic finding — highly-educated Muslim women concentrated in part-time low-wage work, plus elevated young marriage breakdown — is the kind of concrete statistic only a reader researching Muslim Canadian women’s labor would want.
• QUESTION: Worth verifying against the actual 2001 census breakdowns whether ‘highly educated but low-wage and part-time’ holds beyond the Council’s selective citation — a concrete empirical claim the reader’s data-hunting thread could chase.