Women’s Gains on the Labour Market:
A Synthesis of Research
Carole Vincent
CRDCN National Conference, Fredericton, October 24 2012
cvincent.consultation@gmail.com
CONTEXT
One of the most important social and economic
developments during the last 40 years is women’s growing
participation in the labour market.
Participation rates of married women age 20 to 64
Source: Statistics Canada, Labour Force Survey
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CONTEXT
Distribution of women and men, by age group and highest level of
educational attainment, Canada, 1990 and 2009
25 to 34
Highest level of
educational
attainment
0 to 8 years
1990
Women
25 to 54
2009
Men
Women
1990
Men
Women
2009
Men
Women
Men
percentage
3.9
4.6
1.4
1.5
8.6
9.0
2.2
2.7
Some high school
15.5
17.9
5.2
8.0
17.5
18.0
6.6
9.2
High school
diploma
27.3
23.0
15.0
19.3
25.4
20.0
19.4
19.7
9.9
9.7
7.4
8.2
8.2
8.1
6.3
6.5
Postsecondary
certificate/diploma
28.3
29.3
36.7
37.0
26.6
27.8
37.2
36.8
University degree
15.0
15.6
34.3
26.0
13.7
17.1
28.1
25.1
Some
postsecondary
Sources: Statistics Canada, Labour Force Survey, 1990 and 2009.
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CONTEXT
Proportion of labour force with a university education
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CONTEXT
Gender wage ratio among workers age 25 to 54
Drolet (2011) Why has the gender wage gap narrowed?, Perspective on Labour and Income
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CONTEXT
Gender wage ratio among full-time workers by age group
Baker and Drolet (2010) A New View of the Male/Female Pay Gap, Canadian Public Policy
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SYNTHESIS OF RESEARCH: OBJECTIVES

Why is the gender wage gap declining but persisting in
Canada?

How empirical studies using Canadian data are
contributing to our understanding of this issue?

Which particular dimensions of the question have been
addressed fairly well?

What are the main evidence gaps?

What are the policy implications?
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WHY ARE WOMEN’S GAINS ON THE
LABOUR MARKET LOWER THAN MEN’S
GAINS?
Is it who they are? What they do? Or where they work?
Erica L. Groshen (1991) The Structure of the Female/Male Wage Differential: Is it Who You Are, What
You Do or Where You Work?, Journal of Human Resources
“In most part: None of the above.”
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A GAP LARGELY UNEXPLAINED
 “In many dimensions, females increasingly hold an edge on males.
As a result, if females commanded the same returns to (productive)
characteristics as males, we would expect them to receive higher –
not lower – wages than males.” Baker and Drolet (2010) A New View of the
Male/Female Pay Gap, Canadian Public Policy
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DECOMPOSITION OF THE GENDER LOG WAGE
GAP (BLINDER-OAXACA)
Year
Log Wage Gap
(1)
Explained
Component*
(2)
Unexplained
Component
(3)
Proportion of Gap
Unexplained
(3)/(1)
1987
0.287
0.108
0.179
62 %
1997
0.194
0.029
0.165
85 %
2007
0.157
0.013
0.144
92 %
Source: Multiple datasets
* Explained by such characteristics as: educational attainment, tenure,
occupation, industry, age, province of residence and marital status
Baker and Drolet (2010) A New View of the Male/Female Pay Gap, Canadian Public Policy
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… EVEN AMONG THE MOST EDUCATED
 “Les caractéristiques des femmes sont loin d’expliquer à elles seules
leur situation. La part inexpliquée des écarts est beaucoup plus
importante pour les hauts centiles que pour les bas centiles. Ceci
témoigne des grandes difficultés qu’éprouvent les femmes pour
accéder aux emplois bien rémunérés indépendamment de leurs
caractéristiques personnelles et professionnelles.” Boudarbat and
Connolly Pray (2011) L'écart salarial entre les sexes chez les nouveaux diplômés
postsecondaires, HRSDC & CIRANO
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DECOMPOSITION OF THE GENDER LOG WAGE
GAP AT THE MEAN (BLINDER-OAXACA)
Year
Log Wage
Gap
(1)
Explained
Component*
(2)
Unexplained
Component
(3)
Proportion of Gap
Unexplained in %
(3)/(1)
1997 (graduation in 1995)
-0.069
-0.005
-0.064
94 %
2000 (graduation in 1995)
-0.146
-0.048
-0.098
67 %
2002 (graduation in 2000)
-0.078
-0.030
-0.048
62 %
2005 (graduation in 2000)
-0.094
-0.050
-0.044
47 %
2007 (graduation in 2005)
-0.057
0.003
-0.060
105 %
Data source: National Graduates Survey
* Explained by such characteristics as: educational attainment, field of study, multiple
diplomas, employment status, over-qualification, tenure, occupation, industry, province
of residence, marital status, immigrant status, disability, number and age of children
Boudarbat and Connolly Pray (2011) L'écart salarial entre les sexes chez les nouveaux diplômés
postsecondaires, HRSDC & CIRANO
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DECOMPOSITION OF THE GENDER LOG WAGE
GAP BY CENTILE (BLINDER-OAXACA)
Log Wage
Gag
10th centile
50th centile
90th centile
1997 (graduation in 1995)
-0.069
-0.104
-0.088
-0.011
2002 (graduation in 2000)
-0.078
-0.081
-0.076
-0.109
Year
Data source: National Graduates Survey
Boudarbat and Connolly Pray (2011) L'écart salarial entre les sexes chez les nouveaux diplômés
postsecondaires, HRSDC & CIRANO
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POSSIBLE EXPLANATIONS
Women are over-represented in occupations or sectors of
employment that pay less. The concentration of women in
certain occupations – and within all occupations, in
selected tasks – tends to limit their labour market success.
 “Women continue to do women's work at women's wages. ” Armstrong
and Armstrong (2010), The Double Ghetto: Canadian Women and Their Segregated
Work
About 2/3 of all employed women are working in education and health
occupations, clerical or other administrative positions, or sales and
service occupations. This compares with 30 % of employed men.
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POSSIBLE EXPLANATIONS
“What would the gender gap be if the female workforce was given the
male occupational distribution?”
 Occupational segregation could explain 20% of the pay gap
 “The largest contribution to the gender wage gap in the 1990s came
from the within-occupation classes component. […] By 1997/98, the
within-occupation gender gap accounted for almost two-third of the
gender wage gap.” Fortin and Huberman (2002), Occupational Gender
Segregation and Women’s Wages in Canada: An Historical Perspective, CIRANO
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POSSIBLE EXPLANATIONS
Women attach higher value to nonfinancial job
characteristics than do men.
World Value Survey: Part of the gender gap may be based on
preferences by women favouring jobs with lower pay but better working
conditions
Fortin (2005), Role Attitudes and the Labour Market Outcomes of Women across OECD
countries, Oxford Review of Economic Policy and Fortin (2008), The Gender Wage Gap
among Young Adults in the United States: The Importance of Money versus People, The
Journal of Human Resources
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POSSIBLE EXPLANATIONS
Equality, Security and Community Survey & General Social Survey:
Non-financial job characteristics may have large values, especially
workplace trust and other measures of the quality of social capital in
workplaces.
 An increase of trust in management of one point on a scale of 1 to 10
has the same impact on life satisfaction as a 30% increase in income.
 “Female workers attach income-equivalent life satisfaction values for
trust in management that are twice as high as for male workers. […]
Workplaces where trust in management is high are workplaces where
flexible working arrangements are more likely to be in place and
working smoothly.” Helliwell and Huang (2010), Well-Being and Trust in the
Workplace, Journal of Happiness Studies
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POSSIBLE EXPLANATIONS
Women bear an unequal share of family responsibilities.
Therefore, they seek occupational niches where hours are
shorter or more flexible, or where working conditions
allow for a better work-life balance.
“It is not that women are willing to forgo pay because they enjoy flexible
hours whilst men do not. Women are more likely to accept lower
(hourly) wages if this is the only way they can combine the roles of
mother and wage earner.” Report of the European Commission on gender
segregation in the labour market, 2009
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TIME SPENT ON UNPAID CARE OF A CHILD, 2010
Women
Men
Average number of hours per week
All women and men
50
25
Dual-earner couples, respondent working full-time
50
27
Dual-earner couples, respondent working part-time
60
40
Single-earner couples, respondent working
51
26
Lone parents, respondent working
27
12
0 to 4 years
67
30
5 to 14
38
20
By working arrangements
By age of youngest child
Data source: General Social Survey 2010
Statistics Canada (2011) Women in Canada: A Gender-Based Statistical Report
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POSSIBLE EXPLANATIONS
There is a penalty associated with having a child: Women
who have ever had children earn less than women who
have never had children.
General Social Survey: This 'child penalty' or 'family gap' remains even when
accounting for differences coming from:




mothers having more interruptions in paid employment – thus less tenure
mothers being more likely to see their human capital depreciating
mothers being more likely to return to work in another job or part-time
mothers being less productive at work because they are over-worked at home
Phipps, Burton and Lethbridge (2001), In and out of the labour market: Long-term Income
Consequences of child-related interruptions to women’s paid work, Canadian Journal of
Economics
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POSSIBLE EXPLANATIONS
Gender stereotypes in organizational practices tend to
penalize women. Compensation schemes tend to reward
continued employment and long hours, a model more
typical of male employment.
 “Inequality in the workplace is probably rather subtle nowadays. It
seems more likely that less obvious forms of discrimination have
replaced the direct (or overt) discrimination that was common in the
past.” Cooke and Zeytinoglu (2006) Females still face barriers to training, The
Workplace Review
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POSSIBLE EXPLANATIONS
Workplace and Employee Survey: Male workers, whether or not in nonstandard contracts, have relatively equal access to employer-sponsored
training.
 No the same for women: those in temporary contracts, whether fulltime or part-time, are only one third as likely as permanent full-time
workers to have access to employer-sponsored training.
 “Some employers apparently perceive that females in non-standard
contracts either do not need, or should not get, training. The net result
is that females are further over-represented in “dead-end” jobs. This is
an example of the statistical discrimination phenomenon.”Cooke and
Zeytinoglu (2006) Females still face barriers to training, The Workplace Review
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POSSIBLE EXPLANATIONS
Access and Support to Education and Training Survey: Unequal access to
training between gender.
Hui (2012), The Relationship between Funding, Learning Objectives, and Choice of
Program and Courses for Adult Learning, Social Research and Demonstration Corporation.
Is it a reverse causality? Women tend to choose jobs that require less onthe-job training?
It is unknown whether unequal access to training has an impact on pay.
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HOW ABOUT THE SELF-EMPLOYED?
There is an even bigger gap in self-employment income.
Survey and Labour Income Dynamics: Liquidity constraints may
contribute to this gap.
Rybczynski (2009) Are liquidity constraints holding women back? An analysis of gender in
self-employment earnings The Journal of Economic Asymmetries
It is unclear however, whether this is due to discrimination among capital
lenders.
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POSSIBLE POLICY RESPONSES

Promote diversification of women’s educational and
professional choices

Address the “glass ceiling” issue

Strengthen comparable worth and pay equity legislation

Strengthen work-life balance policies

Address issues of gender stereotypes in the workplace
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