If you’re in the workforce, you’re probably aware of the discrepancy in pay for equally valued work between males and females. And if you’re a woman, you’ve probably been told by someone (a man *cough cough*) that the pay gap doesn’t exist anymore. Yeah… and global warming is just a myth, and if a woman floats on water, she’s a witch.
In case you didn’t catch the sarcasm dripping off of that last sentence, the pay gap is alive and well and exists on different levels between white men and… pretty much everyone else.
What’s shocking is that even in developed nations with smaller gender disparity, like North America, men, and women still do not make the same amount of money. No, it’s not because women are less educated, don’t negotiate as well, or the gap doesn’t account for different types of jobs- check your facts. It’s most likely due to unconscious bias in hiring, promoting, and compensation for employees, as well as women being largely underrepresented in leadership positions.
And let’s be clear- all jobs are different, so they will have different pay, that’s just life. But when someone in the same company, in the same city, has the same (or a higher level of) experience, and education, completes the same or better job performance, and is still getting paid less? That’s where we have our problem. That’s the wage gap, and it’s relevant y’all.
It’s been proven that females who are just entering the workforce, as young as 12 years old, make less than males of the same age, and by 15 years old, those girls are already making $3.00 per hour less than boys in almost every industry. This inequality continues throughout the course of working life, with the gap existing in 94% of occupations.
It gets worse for women that have to take time off after having children, resulting in pay suffering for at least 5 years- and even longer for younger mothers- where they make only 74% of that of a male in the same position. To the inverse, men often see an increase in their pay after becoming a parent.
What takes the cake is that the pay gap is completely inescapable for a woman over her lifetime. The gap follows women into retirement, where the gendered pension gap is 20%. So even when women exit the workforce, they’re still making less than men.
While statistics can be measured in different ways, currently, in Canada, the gender wage gap is at 11%. Ontario’s gap is reported to be the same, which for us York girlies means that we’re making 89 cents to the dollar of our male counterparts- and that’s best case scenario.
11% is the most generous number for the gap that exists in Canada and that only accounts for full-time employment- the hourly wage gap is more extreme. The gap also greatly differs from region to region. In Newfoundland and Labrador, for instance, the gap for full-time working women is 28%.
Within different regions, the gap is heavily impacted by race, disability, and other factors. For example, even though in America the gender gap has a median of 80 cents to the dollar, Hispanic women make only 53 cents to the dollar of their male counterparts.
Even though Canada has had legislation in place to attempt to shrink the gap since the ’70s, it’s still not enough. In 2021, the government introduced the Pay Equity Act, which requires implementing pay equity plans for companies with 10 or more employees. It’s too early to tell if it will do anything substantial- and it has another year to go before actually being enforced by the government- but it’s a step in the right direction.
On an optimistic note, the pay gap is shrinking worldwide and significantly decreased when women returned to the workforce post-pandemic shutdowns. But the rate it’s declining at is way too slow for us to celebrate just yet. If the decline is consistent, it will still take 61 and a half years to close the gap in North America and over 135 years to close it worldwide.
So what do we do? Well, we can start by eliminating the stigma surrounding women who stand up for themselves. Typically, when women speak out, it’s seen as being pushy instead of empowering, when really, we all need to speak up to change things. Talking about the gap is the biggest indicator of change, and pressuring employers and politicians is the biggest reason the gap is shrinking.
So let’s keep talking about it until people are actually correct when they say the pay gap doesn’t exist.
