Law professor Kathleen Lahey is an expert on taxation and tax policy.
Her recent study, Women And Employment: Removing Fiscal Barriers to Women's Labour Force Participation, commissioned by Status of Women Canada, concludes that the current tax system ignores the impact of income and sales taxes on women’s low incomes and does not consider the realities of their childcare and other economic responsibilities. 
The study analyzes how Canada’s current fiscal policy reinforces the poverty of women and the social, economic, and legal barriers to equal opportunity in the full-time labour force.
The result is a tax and benefit system that leaves low-income women vulnerable to having to claim social assistance, while placing pressure on women whose spouses or partners can afford to support them to turn toward unpaid work in the home, says Professor Lahey.
She concludes that six basic changes to income tax laws would help encourage more women to support themselves through paid income: