Few people would advocate more women living in poverty, but if we are going to have a serious discussion of how best to tackle the issue that more women than men live in poverty, we need to face reality. Sadly, the report issued by a collection of advocacy groups fails miserably on that count. The group uses conjecture rather than facts and when confronted with facts, changes the rules to suit themselves.
Take the longstanding debate over what is called "the gender wage gap." According to the report issued Monday by the collective that includes the Canadian Labour Congress, the Canadian Teacher's Federation and the Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action, women earn just 70 cents for every dollar a man earns in Canada. Were this true it would be a shocking and appalling state of affairs, the type of thing that government regulations must be called upon to rectify. I truly do not know anyone who would advocate that a man earn 42% more than a woman for working the same job, for the same number of hours. Of course this is not the case.
The report, dubbed a reality check by its authors, looks at the government's claim that women earn 84 cents for every dollar a man makes and they dismiss it. Their reason for doing so? The government does not use the correct data. In the government report, the 84 cents on the dollar claim is arrived at by looking at wages on a dollar per hour basis using Statistics Canada's July 2008 Labour Force Survey. In July of 2008 women earned an average of $19.14 per hour while men earned an average of $22.80 per hour, thus the 84 cents on the dollar figure.
The collective report by the labour and activist groups does not use dollar per hour compensation to show that women earn less than men, they use total year compensation. It is easy to understand why the group uses this formula, it will always show that women are being discriminated against while the other formula is showing improvements. A quick look at Stats Canada's monthly Labour Force Survey shows one reason why men make more money than women; they work more hours. While this may not justify a difference in hourly wages, it would justify a difference in year end compensation. In the report cited by the government, men worked an average of 38.7 hours per week, a full five hours more than women who clocked in for 33.7 hours. For full-time workers, rather than all workers combined, there was still a difference, men working 40.7 hours per week to 38 hours for women. In reviewing several months of these reports over the past two years a consistent pattern emerges, men in full-time jobs work two to three hours more per week than women.
As for the difference in hourly wages, part of that is attributable to the type of work men and women choose to do and non-wage benefits that come with those jobs. As the report by the activists shows (page 18 in pdf), women choose to work in fields such as nursing, teaching and social services, jobs that while they pay less come with security and benefits like public sector pensions. From the report, "In 2006, women accounted for 55.9% of all professional jobs, but 87.4% of jobs in nursing, therapy and other health related professional jobs; 71.3% of professional social sciences and religion jobs (most in public and not-for-profit social services); and 63.9% of teaching jobs."
Note the "but" in that last sentence which makes it appear that they are complaining that women dominate certain professions which women choose to go into. The fringe benefits of those jobs often come in the form of delayed compensation such as pensions. According to Stats Can, women are more likely than men to be enrolled in a public sector pension, more likely to be part of a defined benefits plan, the gold standard of pensions. Meanwhile men are more likely than women to be part of a private sector plan and also be enrolled in the less lucrative defined contribution form of pension plan.
There are other benefits which come with these public sector jobs such as top-ups for maternity benefits. I can tell you from experience many private sector employers offer nothing beyond the Employment Insurance maternity/paternity leave plans which pay 55% of wages up to a maximum of just over $400 per week. By contrast, federal government workers are eligible for a top-up that pays them 93% of their wages for the full year of maternal leave.
Finally, there is the job security issue. Throughout the recession, indeed since 1990, women have fared better than men when it comes to unemployment. While factory workers, loggers and even bank executives and high-level sales executives have faced the axe, there have been few reports of teachers and nurses being let go en masse by the government. In January 2010 the unemployment rate for men aged 25 years and older was 7.9% while for women it was 6.1%. If we went back to June 2009 when unemployment was peaking, the rate for men 25 and over was 8.4% while women were still at 6.1%. I wonder how many of those laid off men would have chosen stability over higher wages when they were looking at the unemployment line.
The reasons for men and women earning different annual incomes are many and they are complex. Some of the difference comes down to choice, stability over risk, the decision by many women to only seek part-time work, the difference between what is offered in wages and what is offered in generous public sector benefits. The report offered up Monday by the activists examines none of this and instead looks at one number and comes to the conclusion that it is all due to discrimination. I do note they do not determine that women having 87% of nursing jobs is due to discrimination, and that too speaks to how serious this report is and how much attention policy makers should give to it. If we are going to have a serious discussion on this issue, let's start by looking at real numbers.
Brian Lilley is the Ottawa Bureau Chief for radio stations Newstalk 1010 in Toronto and CJAD 800 in Montreal. Follow Brian on Twitter to get the latest as it happens.
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Comments
I agreed with the article enough to print it to show to a family member to whom I pointed out this morning the Toronto Star's front-page b.s. about this. (But would you make the 'print' version be actually printer friendly--I don't need to print out full-colour ads spread over three pages when I know the article or column will fit on one page without ads.)
Good article, but there's another factor at play: Men do more of the high-risk jobs, and thus deserve higher pay IN THOSE JOBS. As a matter of fact 97% of all workplace-related deaths are men. Source: world.wide.web.kanetix.ca/ic_life_info_life_articles_30
Great article Brian.
These women are living in the past. There shrill and whiny. They come from that hardcore feminista school of man hatred that reached it heights in the early to mid eighties but still continues in the colleges and universities in the guise of gender/woman's studies. Brainwashing our young women with marxist ideology. It's real old and out of step with reality.
I've met real feminists and they are not them.
Andrew,
I doubt Brian has any input on the technical workings of this site. Don't blame others for your shortcomings on navigating around web sites. The internet has been around for awhile now, so get with the program.
Next time,
Try highlighting the text then copying to Word or Notepad or just email the article.
The internet is your friend.
Using the correct data with any study is important especially when you are talking about something like the gender pay gap. I didn't even think about the difference between private and public sector jobs. That definitely makes a difference when you look at the insurance for expecting mothers ( http://www.pionins.com ). Thanks for providing such accurate information about a topic that might have been misled in the past.
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Great post! It seems like the gap has been closing for several years.There are definitely areas where the gender gap is still there. Car insurance for example and other high risk jobs. (http://www.eisenhauerinsurance.com)
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