Study reveals gendered wage gaps across Atlantic Canada, calls for change [video]

A new study reveals persistent gendered wage gaps in Atlantic Canada and proposes solutions that include stronger pay equity laws, higher minimum wages and labour standards, and support for unions. 

To learn more, the NB Media Co-op sat down with co-author Christine Saulnier, director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives–Nova Scotia, which published the report.

Watch the full interview with Christine Saulnier: 

According to the report — which uses data gathered by Statistics Canada from the Labour Force Survey, Canadian Income Survey, and Canadian Census — New Brunswick has a weekly wage gap that sits at 14 per cent, meaning that on average, women earn $181 less per week than men. 

To put that into perspective, March 28 is Equal Pay Day for New Brunswick, a symbolic date showing how many weekdays into the New Year women would have to keep working to earn as much as men during the previous year. 

That means women have to work an extra 62 work days to reach that milestone, the report states.

In Atlantic Canada, the gendered wage gap represents two extremes: in Newfoundland and Labrador women earn $355 per week less than men, a 24 per cent wage gap,  the second-biggest gap in all of Canada. 

On the other hand, in Prince Edward Island the weekly wage gap is the smallest in Canada at five per cent, meaning women earn $59 dollars per week less than men.

P.E.I. stands out for its implementation of a Pay Equity Commissioner and a Pay Equity Bureau, and a Pay Equity Act that was passed in 1988, according to the report.

New Brunswick also has a Pay Equity Bureau, however one downside is that the Pay Equity Act — which passed into law in 2009 — only deals with the public sector.

This does still shrink the gap, as the public sector in New Brunswick has a gap of $123 per week (eight per cent), compared to $292 in the private sector (25 per cent).

New Brunswick is also the most recent province to pass standalone pay transparency legislation. 

The law, which received royal assent in June, bars employers from asking about your pay at previous jobs, while also requiring them to post the expected salary or wage range when hiring and protecting employees from reprisals for discussing pay.

The report notes that women face smaller pay gaps in unionized positions, but public sector jobs are more likely to be unionized in all four Atlantic provinces.

In New Brunswick, only 6.5 per cent of women in the private sector are unionized, in contrast to 78.8 per cent of women in public sector jobs. 

Women in non-union jobs in New Brunswick face a weekly wage gap of $246 (21 per cent) compared to $124 per week (nine per cent) for women in unionized jobs. 

And while only 11.7 per cent of men in New Brunswick’s private sector are unionized, that’s nearly twice the rate of women in private sector jobs, according to data cited in the report, indicating that the ability to enter a union is unequal between genders.. 

For women with intersectional identities‚— such as Indigenous, racialized, and immigrant women — the wage gap is especially wide.  For example, in New Brunswick, the wage gap between racialized women and non-racialized men reaches 37 per cent. 

The wage gap between Indigenous women and non-Indigenous men is 38 per cent in New Brunswick. 

Major disparities also exist based on immigration status. In New Brunswick, women who aren’t permanent residents have a 51 per cent wage gap compared to non-immigrant men, according to the report.

Education is also an important factor. Women with less than a high school diploma face a 47 per cent  wage gap in New Brunswick.  If they graduate high school, that goes down to a 20 per cent gap, and if they obtain a bachelor’s degree or higher they face a nine per cent gap. The wage gap is 22 per cent for women with post-secondary less than a bachelor’s. 

Women also disproportionately shoulder the burden of unpaid child and elder care, and they often adjust paid work around these responsibilities, the report notes. This results in higher representation of women in part-time work. 

In New Brunswick, women represent 49.1 per cent of all employees but 64 per cent of part-time employees. 

This, in turn, also affects full-time hourly wages with lasting consequences, as fewer hours can cascade into not just lower weekly pay, but also lower pension contributions and reduced financial security. 

The report includes a number of recommendations aimed at combating the wage gap.  For example, enforcement of pay equity laws may require penalties or fines, which is the case in Quebec, it states. 

The report also calls for governments to use public money to support public and non-profit care services “through funding, land use, public buildings and local partnerships, instead of relying mainly on market solutions.”   

Under pay equity legislation, “measurable goals must also  tackle intersectional gender discrimination that includes non-binary and transgender understandings, and data for workers who are racialized, with a disability and/or Indigenous,” it states.  

The report also calls for changes that include raising minimum wages towards living wages, with stronger labour standards to “require fair scheduling, guarantee paid sick days, improve access to benefits for part-time and temporary workers and enforce employment standards more seriously.” 

Other recommendations include treatingchild care, elder care, health care and disability support as essential infrastructure — and all stakeholders to listen to those most affected and ensure their representation in “policy design, workplace committees, bargaining priorities, and union leadership.”

Lance Francis is a student at St. Thomas University and member of Elsipogtog First Nation. This report was produced as part of media production workshops hosted by the NB Media Co-op.