Why Do Women Still Earn Less?
Working Women in Canada Earn only 70.5 Percent What Men Make
Mar 23, 2008
A study released for International Women’s Day entitled Women in the Workforce, revealed that a Canadian woman earns, on average, only 70.5 cents for every dollar earned by a man.
And it doesn’t matter how much education that woman has, how much experience she has gained, or how long she has put off starting a family to further her career. For all women who work full-time in Canada, the average annual salary is $39,200, while men who work full time earn an average of $55,700, according to the Canadian Labour Congress. And according to the study, more than three out of four people earning more than $89,000/year, which comprises the top five percent of the Canadian workforce, are men.
This makes Canada’s pay disparity the fifth worst of the OECD countries, and worse than that in the U.S. It also represents a step backwards from the mid-90s, when women were earning 75 percent of what men were earning. Why, in this day and age, is this still the case, and why is the situation seemingly getting worse for women?
Working Women Who Raise Families Are Penalized
Women who take time out of their careers to have children and raise families are penalized in the workforce. Women who choose to return to work after their allotted maternity leave are often unable to do the kind of overtime, travel or evening events required to get ahead in the corporate world. And so they lose access to the upper echelons of the business hierarchy simply because they have elected to have a family. Men are not similarly affected.
Women with children are also more likely to work in part-time or unstable jobs, which typically pay less, in order to have more time to care for their children. This is not the case in Scandinavian countries that provide low-cost public child care and elder care services, enabling women to continue working full time.
Women Work More Part-time Jobs
In Canada, the number of women in the workforce is higher than ever. And yet, more than one in five women make less than $12/hour, working in jobs that are part-time or temporary. While women have penetrated the ranks of white collar workers to a large degree, they remain largely shut out of upper management and executive positions, as well as blue-collar jobs that tend to be unionized, such as those in the trades and technical occupations.
Women’s Pay Not Just Supplementary to Families
As recently as a couple of decades ago, women’s earnings were viewed as supplementary to a family’s overall income. Today, however, most families rely on a second income just to pay the bills. And yet, women still take on the role of primary caregivers for both children and elderly parents, and are often responsible for managing the family home and working full time outside the home. Few employers recognize and make allowances for this reality, and women must often sacrifice upward career mobility for domestic responsibilities.
Single Women Face Poverty
At a time when women are waiting longer to marry, and divorce rates are on the rise, wage gaps mean single women face poverty more often than men. And this often extends into old age, when women are more likely to live on a low income than men (8.4 percent compared to 3.2 percent).
The Canadian Labour Congress is calling for an end to wage inequality and recommends writing a letter to your local Member of Parliament to send the message that this situation is simply no longer acceptable.
Read the full Women in the Workforce report.
