The article Gender earnings gap starts upon graduation and widens quickly, by Matt Lundy is an article in which the wage gap between men and women is apparent and in place soon after postsecondary schooling. The article presents various statistics and graphs targeting the difference in wages in men and women. It is based on a new report, the non-profit Labour Market Information Council and the Education Policy Research Initiative (EPRI). As well as the wage gap, an earning gap was also mentioned, where degrees earned may lead to work in an unrelated field. It is touched upon that the gender earnings gap was “lowest for holders of professional degrees (at 2 per cent, or 1,400$) and highest for those with college-level certificates (21 per cent, or 8,600$)” (Lundy 2020). In another article by Finance Canada, it was declared that women earn on average only around 60% to 75% of men’s wages. This is an ongoing issue in the workplace and it is important to stress the fact that the worlds GDP (Gross Domestic Product) could grow by 12$ trillion by 2025. The graph below shows the average pre-tax employment earnings for 2010 graduates, showing that males tend to earn a lot more than females do. Another statistic showed that women who graduated university with a Bachelor’s degree earned an average of 69,063$ annually while men earned 97,761%.
This greatly affects women working as hard and in some circumstances, even harder than men earning a lower wage. This ongoing issue causes great economic inequities among women, so much that Canada has been ranked 8th as having the highest gender pay gap out of 43 countries. This continuing gap has not been adequately responded to by governments and employers and will only continue to progress if not ceased, putting women in a more vulnerable profit related position. There was an intervention made in 2018 by the federal government in order to put in order a “proactive pay equity for federally regulated sectors” (2019). This was a step in the right direction to closing the gender pay gap, yet in order to obtain grand results, more involvement is necessary. Furthermore, there are many organizations that intervene in the matter (STEM, Canadian Women’s Foundation, etc.) and work together to improve women’s economic equity. In order to further my knowledge on this issue, I would like to be informed as of why governments and policies have not addressed and regulated the subject. As the gender wage gap is an issue that has been reoccurring for decades, it is surprising that it still goes ‘unnoticed’ or ‘unacknowledged’ by the government. I personally believe that organizations like STEM and Canadian Women’s Foundation work toward empowering women to make them believe they can have and complete the same jobs as men, while earning the same pay. This is an inner approach and bigger and global approaches need to be completed in order to close the gender wage gap.
References:
- Matt Lundy – https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-gender-earnings-gap-starts-upon-graduation-and-widens-quickly-says/
- Gender Pay Gap: Pay Inequity Facts : https://canadianwomen.org/the-facts/the-gender-pay-gap/
- https://fincacanada.org/blogs/6-facts-about-women-working/?gclid=Cj0KCQiAsbrxBRDpARIsAAnnz_N1GBQa9Af_D_hOMSRb74C5_QDMWoSP2m2exIktaL757IaSDg-WcG8aAhMYEALw_wcB
Andreanne Robert 