Women make less then Men in Canada..
izable pay gap persists and widens with age, despite rise in women’s education levels
Young women heading into the workforce be warned: you may think it’s an even playing field when you get there but be prepared to earn less than the men from your graduating class and in the cubicles next to you.
That’s one of the messages Fran Donaldson, president of the Canadian Federation of Business and Professional Women, says should be drawn from 2006 census data released Thursday on income and earnings.
The Statistics Canada report showed that the gap in earnings between men and women is still a sizable one.
In 2005, women earned 85 cents for every dollar paid to men in a comparison of full-time, full-year workers aged 25 to 29 where there’s little difference between the sexes in labour market experience and tenure.
“It’s just incredible, it’s appalling,” Donaldson said about the persistent gap in an interview.
The pay gap was exactly the same size in 2005 as it was five years earlier, the report shows.
But for young women in some professions, that gap may not appear right away.
As an articling student with a national law firm, 26-year-old Jahmiah Ferdinand is confident that she is making “the exact same salary” as the three other students—one female and two males.
And she expects that to continue, at least at the start of her law career.
“Generally, for the first five years, it seems like you just go up at the same rate. Everyone goes up about $5,000 a year, as far as I know,” Ferdinand said. But, she added, taking time to have children may trigger a divergence in career paths for men and women.
“I imagine that’s when women may fall behind, depending on their personal decisions on work-life balance and where they want to take their careers,” Ferdinand said.
Statistics Canada gives two reasons for the lack of progress in closing the wage gender gap.
“First, young women experienced no growth in median earnings during this period, even though their educational levels kept increasing,” the report said.
Second, median earnings of young men also changed relatively little between 2000 and 2005 after dropping substantially between 1980 and 2000.
The median earnings—the level at which half a population falls above and half below—for full-time male workers aged 25 to 29 in 2005 was $37,680. For women it was $32,104.
That difference is something young women may be surprised to encounter.
“The first thing I’d like them to do is understand that it’s not as even a playing field as it might appear to be at the beginning,” Donaldson said. Leaving the workplace temporarily to have a baby is one reason why women can get knocked off an equal footing, but there are many other factors at play, she says.
Unwelcoming environments and sexist attitudes still permeate some workplaces and women are held back, despite their education, qualifications and experience, because they are still not considered by their superiors to be “leadership material,” according to Donaldson.
Be assertive, don’t settle for less and be on alert for gender bias in the workplace, is her advice to young women. Women can’t close the gap on their own, however, Donaldson says. More forward-thinking men in positions of authority who recognize and accept the differences between men and women in the workplace are also needed. Affordable and accessible child care for families would also help more women advance, she added.
The Statistics Canada analysis compared men and women aged 25 to 29, with varying levels of education and in different professions, and found narrow pay gaps in some cases and rather large ones in others.
Women with a graduate or professional diploma, for example, earned 96 cents for every dollar earned by men. The ratio dropped at the bachelor’s degree level to 89 cents for every dollar, and at the apprenticeship and trades certificate level the ratio slipped to 65 cents for every dollar.
“The gap between male and female workers who have similar levels of education was mainly due to the fact that young women are overrepresented in low-paying occupations,” said Statistics Canada.
The gender pay gap was very slim for young workers in identical occupations but there were some exceptions noted in the report.
Women in management occupations earned 86 cents for every dollar earned by their male colleagues and in sales and service jobs, the gap was even bigger, at 72 cents for every dollar.
In terms of age, the older the workers the bigger the gap, the 2006 census showed.
The ratio for workers aged 30 to 34 was 79 cents earned by women for every dollar earned by men; for ages 35 to 39 it was 75 cents; those aged 40 to 44 saw a ratio of 73 cents for every loonie; and women aged 45 to 54 earned 72 cents for every dollar earned by men.
Donaldson said promoting women in the workplace and closing the gender pay gap would benefit society in general because of the economic spinoffs.
“It’s not just a mater of social justice, it’s a matter of plain economics,” she said. “If women were making more money, they would be spending more money and everyone would benefit.”
http://www.scwist.ca/index.php/main/...n-census-says/
This is a good example of concrete, systematic sexism that we as leftists need to strongly oppose... I assume it's the same all over the world to?
