StatCan study finds gender parity in leadership roles subject to pay equity laws

As of 2014, women’s labour force participation reached 82 per cent, Statistics Canada says, compared with 91 per cent for men, narrowing a gap that was more than 70 percentage points in the early 1950s.

In 2015, just over half of Canada’s women worked in traditionally female occupations: teaching, nursing, social work, clerical positions, or sales and services, compared with 17.1 per cent of men — figures that have changed little over the last 30 years.

Women remain outnumbered in natural and applied science occupations that usually require a university degree.

As a result, women tended to occupy lower-paying jobs and earned less overall than men: Statistics Canada calculated that women earned 87 cents for every dollar earned by a man. Looking across 46 occupation groups, Statistics Canada found that women’s wages would rise on average by $2.86 per hour if men and women were paid equally.

The Liberals won’t move on pay equity legislation until 2018 at the earliest with the federal labour minister saying the law is more complicated than it sounds. Patty Hajdu said the government doesn’t want to impose burdens on employers.

In the meantime, the government is focusing on skills training targeting women who go into non-traditional fields, like the sciences and mining, and helping women who go into non-traditional jobs and leave because it is inhospitable for them to stay, Hajdu said.

The Canadian Press

by Canadian Press

StatCan study finds gender parity in leadership roles subject to pay equity laws

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