Earnings Inequality and the Gender Pay Gap in Canada
Posted on March 8, 2019 in Equality Policy Context
Source: CDHowe.org — Authors: Nicole Fortin
CDHowe.org – Intelligence Memos
March 7, 2019. Nicole Fortin and Abby Sullivan
Over the past half-century, Canada has witnessed an impressive growth in women’s labour force participation and a substantial convergence in the proportion of men and women working. While one may assume that a gender convergence in pay would follow suit, the persistent – and even increasing – earnings inequality particularly among the top earners implies that existing policies are ineffective at narrowing the gender pay gap further.
There have been sizeable improvements in female representation at the top of the earnings distribution with the share of women in the top 9 percent increasing more than threefold. However, given the still low representation of women among top earners, those improvements have not been sufficient to counterbalance the effects of increasing top earnings inequality.
A forthcoming paper (Fortin 2019) finds that three quarters of the average gender hourly wage gap comes from the top 10 percent of earners. In terms of annual earnings, Bonikowska, Drolet, Fortin (2019) find that this fraction jumped to more than 85 percent in 2015. Since 2000, the gender annual pay ratio – women’s average annual pay as a share of men’s average annual pay – has been 15 points higher in the bottom 90 percent than in the ratio for all earners. These results indicate that without a higher representation of women among top earners, the gender pay gap will not shrink further.
There has also been a noticeable decline in the annual earnings ratio in the childbearing ages. Women who choose to take a step back from the labour market for childbirth can experience penalties upon their return in the form of delayed or missed career progression, gender differences in weekly hours worked and a lack of benefits and bonuses, relative to men. Addressing these disparities requires a continued focus on family-friendly policies.
To date, policies focused on removing gender inequalities have emphasized pay equity/comparable worth across predominantly female and male occupations for jobs of equal value. A formal analysis of the impact of Quebec’s gender equality policies finds no impact on women’s relative hourly wages from its pay equity law in the short run, but modest and significant long-run impacts from the wider range of its gender equality policies. Evidence also shows that the share of the gender pay gap unexplained by education, occupation, industry, and employment status has increased as a proportion of the raw gap – suggesting that other explanatory factors like within-firm obstacles may be contributing to the gender disparities. Provinces should consider the fact that their pay equity policies may have exhausted their impact on closing the pay gap and there is a need to look more closely at hierarchal gender issues within job classes that are not predominantly female.
Despite the moderation of rising top earnings inequality that followed the 2008 financial crisis, it is clear that until the representation of women improves among top earners, the gender pay gap will not shrink further.
Policymakers should focus on strategies that will reduce gender differentials within organizations, allowing women to move up to higher positions. Following the lead of certain European countries, it could also be beneficial to implement an empirical evaluation requirement for policies going forward. Until women have more equal opportunity for representation among the top earners, Canada will continue to witness a persistent gender pay gap.
Nicole Fortin is a professor at the Vancouver School of Economics at the University of British Columbia and Abby Sullivan is a researcher at the C.D. Howe Institute.
https://www.cdhowe.org/intelligence-memos/fortin-sullivan-earnings-inequality-and-gender-pay-gap-canada
Tags: economy, ideology, standard of living, women
This entry was posted on Friday, March 8th, 2019 at 9:28 am and is filed under Equality Policy Context. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
128 Responses to “Earnings Inequality and the Gender Pay Gap in Canada”
« Older Comments | Newer Comments »
Recent Comments
Thanks for your patience and sorry for the inconvenience!
I don’t normally comment but I gotta say appreciate it for the post on this one : D.
OK, you outline what is a big issue. But, can’t we develop more answers in the private sector?
Tips and tools you offer are so helpful to agencies in our community.
These kind of posts are always inspiring and I prefer to read quality content so I happy to find many good point here in the post. writing is simply wonderful! thank you for the post
You ma’am have a way with words. Thank you very much!
This is my first time i visit here. I found so many helpful stuff in your website especially its discussion. From the tons of responses on your posts, I guess I am not the only one having all the enjoyment here! keep up the excellent work
Have you always been concerned about these issues?
I wrote down your blog in my bookmark. I hope that it somehow did not fall and continues to be a great place for reading texts.
Kasyno bonus bez depozytu pozwala przetestować ofertę kasyna online bez wpłacania własnych środków na start. Wyjaśniamy, jak odebrać promocję, jak ją aktywować i które punkty regulaminu trzeba sprawdzić, zanim rozpoczniesz grę. Kasyno bonus bez depozytu daje nowemu graczowi możliwość rozpoczęcia gry bez wcześniejszego zasilania konta. W odróżnieniu od klasycznego bonusu powitalnego taka premia jest przyznawana już po rejestracji — automatycznie albo po wpisaniu właściwego kodu promocyjnego.
Hi there! I just wanted to ask if you ever have any trouble with hackers? My last blog (wordpress) was hacked and I ended up losing several weeks of hard work due to no back up. Do you have any solutions to protect against hackers?
Hey very cool site!! Man .. Beautiful .. Amazing .. I will bookmark your website and take the feeds also…I’m happy to find so many useful information here in the post, we need develop more strategies in this regard, thanks for sharing. . . . . .
I believe you have remarked on some very interesting points , thankyou for the post.
Good job for bringing something important to the internet!
How long does it take you to write an article like this?
Hi there, just became aware of your blog through Google, and found that it’s truly informative. It’s important to cover these trends.
I just couldnt leave your website before saying that I really enjoyed the useful information you offer to your visitors… Will be back often to check up on new stuff you post!
Thanks , I’ve recently been searching for info about this topic for ages and yours is the best I have discovered so far. But, what concerning the bottom line? Are you certain concerning the source?
Of course, what a great site and informative posts, I will add backlink – bookmark this site? Regards, Reader
Assume you are doing good linking to position you on the first pages of search engines.