While some of the factors of the pay gap are known, most are not, says Ontario's Pay Equity Office
Equalization of pay between men and women continues to make slow progress and is not helped by a lack of understanding of why it exists.
Ontario’s Pay Equity Office says that Statistics Canada census data is complex because although 30% of the factors of the gender wage gap are known - such as education, job tenure, part-time vs. full-time, public vs. private sector, firm size, unionization rates, industry, and demographics – 70% are unknown using current research methods.
This unexplained portion may be due in part to factors such as gender discrimination and societal expectations and constraints.
In Ontario, the wage gap based on average hourly wages is 13%, which means ghat women earn just 87 cents for every $1.00 earned by a male worker. The gap widens when using average annual salary earnings at 25% or 75 cents on the dollar.
Racialized groups
For Indigenous women and women of colour the gap is wider still with just 61 cents and 62 cents on the dollar respectively.
However, even within racialized groups there is disparity with the gap for Arab women at 47% while for Chinese women it is 25%. There was a 3% narrowing of the gender wage gap for racialized populations between 2016 and 2021.
For Indigenous women the wage gap narrowed by 4% to 39% in that same period.
There is also a gender wage gap for those women with disabilities who earn $25,900 less on average than men without disabilities, a 43% gender wage gap on an average annual wage basis.
Overall, the data reveals that the gap narrowed just six percentage points between 1998 and 2022.
"Census figures about the gender wage gap are just one indicator of wider gender inequalities in the labour market," says Kadie Ward, Commissioner and CAO of the Pay Equity Office who highlights the need for continued efforts to understand and address systemic factors that contribute to these disparities.
