Fatima Syed: 89 cents. That’s approximately how much Canadian women earn for every dollar earned by a man. For Black and Indigenous women and women of colour, that shortfall is even more severe. It may shock you to learn that Canada’s gender pay gap has only decreased by over a dollar in the last 20 years, but that’s about to change. Maybe.
The government of Canada has released new pay equity legislation that goes into effect on August 31st. It might help identify and possibly close the gender pay gap in a few federally regulated sectors. But there’s a whole female workforce to think about, a female workforce that has been hit very hard during the pandemic, from working mothers to young, freshly graduated women. We’ve even got a name for this concerning phenomenon, the “she-cession”. It is outrageous to think that in 2021 employers are still not paying women the same as men for equal work. Technically, this is illegal. It has been for the last 40 years under the Canadian Human Rights Act. But a culture of pay secrecy and a lack of due process in our workplaces has made accountability in this matter very difficult. Canada is trying to seriously help this female workforce for the very first time with this new pay equity legislation and a landmark child care policy. We’ve been waiting for all of this for 50 years while most countries have already taken proactive measures to force companies to report and correct the gender pay gap. So is this a turning point and will we finally succeed?
Fatima Syed: I’m Fatima Syed sitting in for Jordan Heath-Rawlings. This is The Big Story. Andrea Gunraj is the Vice President of Public Engagement at the Canadian Women’s Foundation. Hi, Andrea. Thanks for being here.
Andrea Gunraj: Thanks for having me.
Fatima Syed: So I want to understand more. I mean, we’re both women who work, and I think we’ve seen the pay gap in various different ways. But from a data perspective, can you walk us through why it’s significant and problematic at the same time that Canadian women make 89 cents for every dollar a man earns?
Andrea Gunraj: Well, there’s a lot of issues with that. First of all, I’ll talk about the measures. So 89 cents is one way of measuring it, but work can be measured in a different way. You can think about it in terms of part time versus full time. You can think about it in terms of the kinds of work that women tend to do, the kinds of work that men tend to do and how that measures up in terms of what people are valued for and how they’re paid for that. So the measure that I tend to look at is actually the annual earnings of full time workers. Women workers in Canada earned actually an average of 76.8 cents for every dollar earned by men. And of course, that’s looking at it in terms of both full time workers, looking at the annual average earning, and that’s that’s a 2019 statistic.
But of course, we know in the pandemic that things have changed all the more and that women’s access to work and good paid work has been impacted. And I think the Equal Pay Coalition in Ontario really gives some good insight as to why you have to look at it in terms of not just dollars and cents and what people are making, but you have to look at people’s access to work and what’s stopping them. So a lot of things about the gender pay gap has to do with women’s situation. Women tend to do unpaid work, unpaid care responsibilities, and that impacts their ability and their time for paid work. And that’s also related to the fact that women tend to do work that is undervalued, the kind of work that might get less pay per hour, less benefits, less Union protection, that’s things like work that is in retail, work in the service industry, work that is really seen as less important.
But again, in the pandemic context, in particular, we’ve seen how these jobs that we tend to undervalue have been so important to our daily well being. And, of course, we have to look at the gender pay gap when it comes to different women experiencing this gap differently depending on their identities. The pay gap is much worse for women with disabilities, for instance. It’s worse for Black women. It’s worth for Indigenous women, it’s worse for young women. So we can’t look at it as just one whole kind of analysis. We have to split it up and look at how different people are impacted differently depending on their identity, depending on their racialization, their gender identity, their sexuality, where they live in the country, where their access is to jobs. It’s a really complicated picture.
And what we found, of course, is that it definitely has to do with people what choices are available to them and what choices are cut off. But also it has to do with just straight up discrimination as well, too, that we see that women are getting paid differently. There’s a certain amount that you can explain away based on sexism, based on the way that women live their lives in this world and the way the world is set up for them or not. But it’s also just straight up that there’s an element of it where women are just not getting valued because of their identity, because of their sexuality and all the interrelated, sexuality, their gender identity, their race, all the interrelated things that play into it. So that’s a long answer, but it’s certainly a very complicated picture, and it’s not just a straight matter of equal pay for equal work.
Fatima Syed: And this gender pay gap has existed over several decades, isn’t that right? Like I was reading the Statistics Canada report, and it seemed like this has persisted since at least the 1980s.
Andrea Gunraj: Oh yes. And before that, for sure. And one of the things that I think is really important to look at is that the gender pay gap is seeming to decrease over time in a large scale way. But again, in the pandemic context, it remains to be seen if that actually is the case, because we know women’s access to work has shifted significantly. Given the fact primarily that they’ve had to lose jobs hours and lose access to job opportunities because they have to take care of unpaid responsibilities at home. That’s a big chunk of what we’re seeing.
So I think that we might very well see reversals as we’ve seen reversals on so many measures of gender equality since the beginning of the pandemic. What it really shows for us is that, first of all, gender pay gaps do change, but they change at a glacial pace, change for the better at a very glacial pace. It means that we can’t just allow it to happen by nature, by osmosis. And the second thing that we’re also seeing as well is that these things can get reversed. It’s not something that just happens naturally, and things are just getting better and better. It can reverse on us. So we have to be very concerned about it, and we have have to actually be proactive in the way that we address gender justice issues at large.
Fatima Syed: So let’s talk about one of these solutions. Ottawa announced that its Pay Equity Act will go into effect on August 31st, and this is happening three years after the legislation was first unveiled. It means that employers in federally regulated sectors with 10 or more employees will have three years to identify and correct gender pay gaps within their workforce. Can you walk us through this piece of legislation and what good it could do in closing the gender pay gap?
Andrea Gunraj: Yeah. Well, as you said, it is for federally regulated sectors and that’s very specific sectors in Canada, things like airlines, things like I’ve just been learning what those federal government regulates, and it’s really stuff that I’m not as familiar with myself, like longshoremen and people who who do that kind of work. It’s really interesting to see where it does apply and where it doesn’t apply. So I think that one of the things that is very exciting is that for years, people have been talking about the need for this kind of legislation. They’ve been talking about advocating for women’s labour to be properly compensated. So any pay equity legislation in Canada is a long time coming, and it’s something that we are always excited about to see.
But as you mentioned, it does have its limitations. It’s for the federally regulated sectors, and that’s only a certain set of sectors. It’s only applying to employers with 10 or more employees. It takes three years to implement. And as we know again, with the pandemic, even three months makes a huge difference. So three years is a long time for people’s wellbeing, and quality of life. We also see as well, too, that it’s not going to be helpful for people outside of the federally regulated sector. It’s not going to be helpful for employers with less than 10 employees. But I say that also believing in a few things. I think that it’s important to have this legislation as an example for other sectors that it may not apply to, but it may be something that people who are advocating can point to and say, hey, look at what this federally regulated Pay Equity Act is doing. Why can’t we do that here? It particularly might be useful for those who are in a Union environment where they can say unionized workers have the ability to fight for rights and fight for changes in a way that non unionized environments can’t.
So I think that, again, this could be useful in a broader way, even though it doesn’t technically apply to these sectors, and also I think it’s important to have some kind of example, high bar, higher bar, so that sectors can look at this and say, all right, you know what? This doesn’t apply to us. But we are saying that we want to be an equal opportunity employer. We want to be an opportunity for women to get fair pay and fair treatment. So they might look to this. So I say that with a lot of hope in my heart feeling that perhaps people can use this as a way to fight for the rights. It can be a way that forward thinking employers can look at and have an example of how they can do things. I say that. And I also recognize that broader legislation is really what’s required in Canada to make sure that this gender pay gap is closed in all sectors for all people of all genders, certainly for women, trans, Two Spirit, and nonbinary people.
Fatima Syed: And just so I’m clear this piece of legislation isn’t necessarily going to close the gap, right? It’s instating a review of how people are paid and who are paid more and for what skill set and what responsibilities under what working conditions. Is that right?
Andrea Gunraj: Yes. I think it’s important to see it as a progression. So it’s a review of things, it’s moving towards, of course, the first step of not if you have a gender pay gap and how bad it is is really reviewing it and being able to put the plans in place. So it is a bit of a process, but I think it’s really important to recognize that it’s not a matter of just saying that you have a gender pay gap. Okay. We’re going to fix it tomorrow. It will take time. You have to look at why the gap is happening. It could be because of discrimination. And so, okay, if it’s discrimination, then you have to do training and training takes time. Training also requires a good policy environment and practice environment to make sure that all the things match, that people’s intentions match what the requirements are and that they are asked to meet these requirements. Their performance is measured against this requirement.
So I think it’s important to see that it’s not going to be a thing where we’re going to say, okay, today, equal work, equal pay. You got it. No, it does take time. It does take a changing of the way practices and policies are implemented. It takes time in terms of how HR is done, how managers and people in decision making rules look at these things and kind of measure their workforce against it. It also requires pay transparency so that, you know, what different people are making in an organization and that you know that it’s fair. So, yeah, I think it is a step and it’s a stepping stone in and of itself. It’s not going to turn things around overnight, but it will be an important part of the puzzle towards equity in pay.
Fatima Syed: And do you feel that the legislation has enough incentive to actually encourage companies and employers to conduct these reviews? Like I did read about the fines, they are 30,000 dollars for small businesses and unions and for larger ones, it’s 50,000 dollars if they don’t comply. Is that enough to ensure that these reviews happen and that we do move towards the change that you’re talking about?
Andrea Gunraj: I think that remains to be seen. I think that whether incentives like fines change things and make it so that employers want to do the best that they can do and not just do the baseline, but go above and beyond tp touch the spirit of the law and not just the letter of the law, that will take time to see. But I think that’s why it’s important in this to look at it from a long term horizon, to evaluate how the law is working every so often and take the steps towards it. To be able to look at it and say, all right, is it really changing? Year one, year two, year three? If it’s changing, then maybe things are working right. If it’s not changing the way that we want it or changing very fast in a very meaningful way, then we have to look at what are the incentives? What are the new pieces that have to be done in this legislation to make sure that the changes happen the way that we want them? I think any legislation this goes for anything related to gender justice goals, anything related to gender equity goals. It’s not something that’s one and done. You do have to evaluate it along the way and see if it’s actually meeting the measures that you wanted to meet.
And in terms of fines, you know, 30,000 dollars, 50,000 dollars may seem like a lot on paper, but I just think about the lost wages because of gender inequity that happen. So again, it remains to be seen, and it remains to be seen whether or not it’s more costly to keep the gender pay gap in place, than change them. I would hope that more and more employers want to do this because it’s the right thing to do. We have to make sure that our workforce is healthy and well and fairly treated to make sure that they can function the way that they showed. But it does bring us back to that deeper question, what is work and what is the importance of work and why are we not valuing people’s work the way that we should? It does get to those deep philosophical questions about the way that our workforces are structured and the way that our economy is structured and why it’s even there in the first place.
Fatima Syed: Okay. Well, can I ask you a slightly devil’s advocate as question, which is, could a legislation like this also potentially have an adverse effect by raising the unemployment rate for women or even stagnating the gender gap, if not increasing it because industries or businesses where there are apparent pay inequities might not want to be bothered to do this review and might want to avoid the sort of red tape bureaucracy like looking in your books kind of process that it’s asking them to do.
Andrea Gunraj: I think that’s a really interesting question. I think we have to look at how these things have played out, and I think that there’s lots of indication to show that when women get into a field, for instance, the median wage and compensation has gone down over the course of years, and it’s really about sexism. It’s really about devaluing women’s work and women’s role. It’s about bottom lining and saying that we don’t want to compensate workers the way that we should because we want more profit or we want to to do it cheaper. So I think that, again, it makes this question of a gender pay gap very complicated, that it’s not just a matter of having things on paper. It’s not just a matter of having fines and saying you must do this. It’s about changing the way that work is structured. It’s about improving the way that workers are valued. And that is a whole big question about the way that we set up our workplaces and make it so that we’re not just valuing the bottom line. We’re not just valuing the profits that come in. We’re valuing the workers who make these profits come in, and we’re looking at their quality of life and we’re looking at their well being and equity becomes part of that measure in looking at all those things. So again, it remains to be seen.
But I think we have to keep our eye on the prize and the eye on the prize analysis of this is that we want to make sure that people are healthy and well and able to function and that our economy is functioning as well as it can be, that it’s not short term gains. It’s not just looking at the GDP year over year, it’s looking at how people’s lived rights are actually working out on a daily basis. Do they have what they need to live? Are they getting all the things that they need to thrive, to do well? And when everybody thrives, we all thrive. Our economy thrives, our communities thrive, our homes and our workplaces thrive. It’s not a zero sum analysis, but too often I think these things are talked about in a short term way in a zero sum analysis, where then suddenly we’re pitting people against each other. We’re pitting women against other workers. We’re saying that it’s not worth it. No, that’s not true. So it’s really one of these things where I think a lot of things have to be in place for it to really work out.
I think about the gender pay gap, and honestly, my mind goes to lots of other things. It goes to childcare. If childcare is one of the reasons why people cannot afford to work for paid hours, then we have to make sure there’s a robust childcare plan. And that’s what we’re talking about now in Canada, what it means to put in a federally regulated childcare plan that’s really well funded and well implemented in every province and territory. I think about things like elder care. Do we have great elder care because that’s part of it as well, too. Women are taking care of children. They’re also taking care of elders. And are we all valuing and taking care of elders. I think about things like making sure that racism is reduced, that hate crimes are reduced, making sure that we’re taking these things seriously in all sectors, and making sure that we’re building up racial reconciliation. We’re building up equity when it comes to all the different factors because we know the gender pay gap is worse for racialized people, for Black folks, for Indigenous folks. I think about making sure that there’s equity for people with disabilities. Again, awful gender pay gap for women with disabilities. We’re not valuing women with disabilities. We’re not valuing people with disabilities the way that we should. We should make sure that work and good care is available for people regardless of their abilities, the things that they might be dealing with on a day to day basis. So it becomes a huge question.
Fatima Syed: So if this is step one in answering that big question and then taking concrete steps towards progress, what’s next? I mean, we have seen in recent months the federal government has announced childcare policies. There seems to be a renewed focus on gender based issues. What’s the best way to capitalize on this momentum so Canada does become a global leader in addressing the gender pay gap?
Andrea Gunraj: Well, I think, as you said, childcare is going to be a big part of this and this type of legislation, along with childcare, I think if all things go the way that we’re hoping it will go, I think we will see an improvement. I think, as well, too, that some legislation that applies across sector, not just the federally regulated sector, but all sectors is going to be required. And sooner than later again, because we’ve seen reversals in the pandemic context. I think that’s really important. That allows pay equity from a pay transparency lens and also from equal pay for equal work reviews and making sure that you’re looking at why these things are happening, not just the basic fact that they are happening.
I think also, what is important, just equally important is looking at gender based violence. A lot of people have talked about how the fact that a woman is killed by our intimate partner, on average every six days in Canada. And there’s every indication that gender based violence has increased in the pandemic context. I think about women’s safety overall, and you cannot get a good job and maintain that job and be well and get housing and get all the things you need if there’s an umbrella of gender based violence over your head, if you feel that perhaps you would get work and you will be sexually harassed, all this is all part of the picture of what it means to have a gender equal Canada. So I think about the National Action Plan on gender based violence that is being worked on. Right now, federal government funded, working with partners like the Women’s Shelters Canada and other partners who have been pushing for this for years. They have a really great analysis on why these things are very important to look at, why we have to have a specific plan for Indigenous women, recognizing the colonial context and missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls and Two Spirit people. I think that that’s all part of the picture.
Those three things, the gender legislation, childcare, and a National action plan within short order. If these things are put into place and they are done the right way, I am very hopeful to see changes and not just the glacial change of pace that we’ve seen over the years, but a real kind of lived change that people see see the benefit of it, that women and the people that are dependent on it, families, whole families will benefit from this. But I think that we will have to just keep the pressure on, keep our pedal to the metal, and make sure that we keep pushing for these things to to see any changes within the next three to 5 years.
Fatima Syed: Well, thank you so much for the work you’re doing, Andrea, and for having this conversation with us. I’m also hopeful that things will change.
Andrea Gunraj: hank you for having me.
Fatima Syed: That was Andrea Gunraj, the vice President of Public Engagement at the Canadian Women’s foundation, and that was The Big Story. You can find more at thebigstorypodcast.ca. If you want to send us a message, we’re on Twitter at @TheBigStoryFPN. You can also email us at thebigstorypodcast@rci.rogers.com.
I’m Fatima Syed, thank you for listening.
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