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Ignoring women in the labour market 364 days per year
Editorial by Christian Saint Cyr
National Director / Canadian Job Development Network
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Women get a lousy deal in Canada’s labour market. While we take a moment each International Women’s Day (this Friday March 8th) to discuss the challenges and contributions of women in Canada and around the world, often times I think this demonstrates that we take one day per year to celebrate women and ignore them the other 364 days.
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In preparing this newsletter, I went looking for all of the relevant research into labour market outcomes of women in Canada and do you know when the most relevant information was released? It was March 8th, 2023; the last International Women’s Day.
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Even though men and women make up even numbers of working age adults, there are nearly 750,000 more men working in Canada than women. There are nearly 1.2 million more men than women working full-time, full-year.
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Just 37 per cent of women are self employed, despite extensive programs to promote self-employment among women. And while women make up 14 per cent of the construction workforce, it is as little as four per cent of on-site construction workers.
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Women hold just one-in-five roles as directors in non-profits and corporations. Women hold one-sixth of the CEO roles in Canada and of the 100 best paid CEOs in Canada, just four were women and nearly all of them made less than the average paid to all of the CEOs. In fact, if you are one of the Top 100 best-paid CEOs in Canada, you’re just as likely to be named Mark or Scott as being a woman.
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While women have made strides in recent years, today women are making just 89 cents for every dollar being made by their male counterparts.
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If you are looking to government to correct this situation, you’ll note that just 31 per cent of elected officials are women.
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The news isn’t all bad. University enrollment is higher among women than men and women are earning higher educational outcomes than their male counterparts. Eighty-five percent of women are earning a bachelor’s degree vs. 78.4% of men.
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Women are also posting lower unemployment rates than men. In January 2024, the unemployment rate was 4.9 per cent for women and 6.0% for men. And if you think this was an anomaly, you should note that in May 2020, the period of highest unemployment among workers due to the pandemic, the unemployment rate for women was 11.5 per cent while the unemployment rate for men was 11.9 per cent.
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I’m not saying, since women have a lower unemployment rate and are achieving higher levels of education that their labour market outcomes are mixed. What I’m asking is, “why do women earn less, participate less in the labour market and are less represented in senior roles in spite of having better education and lower unemployment?”
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The answer relates to the quality of the employment. Women are over-represented in entry level employment and are well represented in many skilled roles but there are still institutional barriers that challenge a woman’s ability to achieve career advancement.
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While some of these statistics might be thought provoking, there not shocking. That’s what bothers me the most.
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Can you imagine if employers posted separate wages for racialized Canadians or new immigrants? What if a job ad stated: Salary for White Canadians: $65,000 and for Canadians of Colour: $56,550. By the way, that is the salary difference for white Canadians versus racialized Canadians.
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What if the job ad listed: Salary for able-bodied candidates: $55,200 or for people with disabilities it is $43,400? This is also the salary difference between Canadians without disabilities versus those who have a disability.
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We accept discrimination as part of our labour market and don’t question it even though job postings are essentially conveying: Salary for men: $70,000 or for women it is $62,300 and you’ll be five times less likely to advance to a senior role.
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I realize this is an incredibly complex situation and while I don’t deny there is conscious discrimination occurring a lot of actions are dictated by unconscious bias. Many times, the unconscious bias is among men towards women and sometimes it’s among women towards women.
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When we’ve all been raised in a world where we take it for granted that women are paid less, receive fewer career opportunities and where we assign women unstated expectations and prejudices, often times we can’t really see where we are and aren’t being fair and unbiased.
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We certainly needed to address systemic bias by instituting programs and policies that will correct the labour market imbalance women experience.
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And yet it’s easy to leave it to the policy makers, elected officials, CEOs and HR leaders to correct this situation and not challenge ourselves to be part of the solution.
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As parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, siblings, friends, family, educators and community leaders, we have a role to play in mentoring and supporting girls to see their unlimited potential in the labour market. To be aware of subtle messaging that tells girls they are lesser than boys or that there are unspoken expectations of what women can and cannot do.
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In our roles as career professionals, particularly those in job development, I believe we have an important role in gently illuminating the unconscious bias of employers but also in helping build up our clients or students to see the full spectrum of jobs that may be available to them.
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When an employer specifically requests male candidates, rather than stating this is prejudicial or noting that human rights legislation forbids such hiring practices, to simply engage the employer in a discussion about why they believe a male is more suited to this role. By asking probative questions, the employer is going to have to justify what they instinctively believe and when it’s verbalized, they may realize this may not be necessary.
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At the end of the day, many employers are going to choose men over women; provide higher salary increases to men; and promote men over women and not have to justify why they are doing this to anyone. By engaging them in dialogue, without judgement, we can build our influence with them.
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If all that fails, you can always leave them with an FAQ about provincial human rights legislation and state that you really don’t want to see them buried in penalties and judgements. It’s more heavy-handed but some employers just don’t listen to reason.
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For your women clients and students, it might be helpful to just engage in conversations about occupations that typically have higher concentrations of men. These jobs might not appeal to them at all and for some they’ll be very clear about their career goals, but perhaps for a few it will be an open window to a career path they might find very rewarding: financially, spiritually and emotionally.
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We’ll be discussing gender gaps and the challenges women experience in the labour market in more detail at our #MotivatingMondays meeting of the Canadian Job Development Network, Monday March 4th at 8:30am Pacific; 9:30am Mountain; 10:30am Central; 11:30am Eastern; 12:30pm Atlantic and at 1pm in Newfoundland. Visit: www.MotivatingMondays.ca on Monday to join the session LIVE.
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