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HomeNewsWomen employment survey shows improvement in labour numbers, stalled progress on wage...

Women employment survey shows improvement in labour numbers, stalled progress on wage gap

In honour of International Women’s Day, Stats Canada unveiled the Women and paid work survey on Wednesday.

Over 80% of women between the ages of 25 and 54 worked in the labour force in 2015 compared to just 20% in 1950.

However, Labour Division Analyst Melissa Moyser says women still tend to be stuck in traditional occupations.

“In 2015, 56.1% of women were employed in teaching, nursing and related health occupations, social work, clerical or other administrative jobs or sales and services. The equivalent for men was 17.1%.”

Women are 19% more likely to work less than their male counterparts according to the study.

The number one reason was to care for children.

The issue of wage inequality between men and women continues to be in the spotlight in Canada.

Women earn an average of 0.87 cents compared to every dollar earned by men.

Even if the vast majority of females earned a university degree above the bachelor level it only pushes the gap to 0.90 cents.

Moyser adds the picture would look a lot different if women earned men’s wages.

“Given women’s current occupational distribution if they, in fact, earned men’s wages you would see they would earn an average of $2.86 more per hour and the gender age ratio would almost reach parity, it would almost be equal wage-wise where women would earn 0.97 cents compared to every dollar earned by men.”

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