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About the Funder

Office of Women’s Social and Economic Opportunity through the Women’s Economic Security Program, Province of Ontario

The Office of Women’s Social and Economic Opportunity (OWSEO) funds programs and services that provide women who have experienced violence and/or economic insecurity with multifaceted supports to rebuild their lives, gain skills, and secure better jobs.

Trends on women’s economic outcomes and gender-based violence, and intersections between them, point to the need for interventions that recognize women’s experiences, address their needs, and help remove systemic barriers to women’s security and safety.

In recent years, there has been a demonstrated increase in the need for both violence prevention and economic-related services for women. For example, structural changes have made certain jobs more vulnerable to automation putting many women in such jobs at a higher risk of disruption.

Systemic gender gaps in the labour market continue to persist. For example:

  • Working women represent almost half of Ontario’s workers and account for about half of families’ employment incomes.
  • Women are more likely to be employed in part-time and/or precarious positions.
  • Even when childcare responsibilities diminish, women are more than twice as likely to work part-time due to personal and family responsibilities (e.g., providing care to a spouse or elderly parents).
  • Women continue to be over-represented in lower-paying occupations and under-represented in higher-paying occupations like the skilled trades and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).
  • Black, Indigenous, racialized and newcomer women face additional barriers to workforce participation.
  • Women entrepreneurs face barriers to accessing financing and growing their business. On average, women launch businesses with 53% less capital than men.
  • Low-income women experience significant barriers to accessing skills training: lack of financial resources to replace earnings while in training, access to affordable childcare, mental health, legal, housing supports.


Supporting women’s labour force participation through the delivery of programs that provide job-readiness preparation and critical wraparound supports is linked to broader social and economic benefits.

Women’s Economic Security Program (WESP)

Established in 2018, the objective of the Women’s Economic Security Program (WESP) is to promote women’s economic security by increasing income and labour force participation for low-income women and 2SLGBTQQIA+ individuals who identify as women in Ontario through training delivery. The program aims to provide training that is based on community-identified needs and address labour market gaps in sectors where women have historically been underrepresented such as the skilled trades, Information Technology, and entrepreneurship.

The program includes mandatory program supports and services to help remove socio- economic barriers that women may face participating in and completing the training programs.

The program serves low-income women including individuals from priority populations including Black, racialized, Indigenous, Francophone, newcomer, immigrant and refugee women, women who have experienced or are at risk of gender-based violence/sexual violence, women with disabilities, women 55+, rural women, and 2SLGBTQQIA+ individuals that identify as women.

Furthermore, WESP aims to strengthen organizations’ capacity to deliver on their mandates in innovative ways that encourage partnerships between women-centered community-based organizations, educational institutions, and businesses.