Statistics reveal that 61% of older Canadian women who are unattached to a male partner live in poverty. Two primary factors why women are especially vulnerable to poverty are their financially dependent status and their inequality in the work force. Even women who have worked outside the home are more vulnerable to poverty in old age than their male counterparts for the following reasons: the gap between men's and women's wages; segregation of women into low-paying jobs; the inability of many women to either find or accept full-time work offering benefits and pensions because of their need to balance the demands of family responsibilities and work; and the need for women to move in and out of the work force to accommodate childbearing and raising and/or to care for aging parents or spouses. Canadian women over the age of 65 are heavily reliant on three federal pension programs: Old Age Security, the Canada Pension Plan, and guaranteed income supplements to subsidize low-income pensioners. Saskatchewan women are also eligible for two provincial supplements to the federal pension: The Saskatchewan Income Plan and the Saskatchewan Citizen's Heritage Program. Policymakers must recognize that older women are not to blame for their poverty and must work for pension reform and equality in the workplace. (An annotated list of 18 print, audiovisual, and community resources is included.) (MN)