Statistics Canada has published a new report that depicts the Gender Wage Gap (GWG) for all women in Canada, regardless of citizenship or immigration status.
The GWG is the wage disparity between Canadian-born men and women working in comparable occupations. The survey also included immigrant men and women in the pay comparison. Statistics Canada calculated the GWG by examining the disparities in full-time and part-time earnings based on pay distribution (lower income to high income positions), as well as among immigrant women who arrived in Canada as an adult vs. as a kid.
Overall, the proportion of immigrant women who arrived in Canada as children fell from 14.7% in 2007 to 10.5% in 2022. Immigrant women who arrived as adults reduced their gender disparity with Canadian-born men from 27.4% in 2007 to 20.9% in 2022.
In 2022, Canadian-born women had a 9.2% advantage over Canadian men. This is a decrease from 15% in 2007.
Immigrant men were discovered to have nearly closed the difference between themselves and Canadian-born men.
Pay Distribution is Divided into two Categories : Low and High.
Immigrant women in lower-pay distribution positions have experienced an improvement in narrowing the GWG, whereas those in higher-pay distribution positions have seen little progress since 2007.
Immigrant women with poorer pay distributions who arrived as adults, for example, reduced their salary gap by 13.7 percentage points, from 20.0% in 2007 to 6.3% in 2022.
Those at the top of the income scale, meanwhile, witnessed essentially no change between 2007 and 2022, remaining at 20.1%. There was an 11.3% salary disparity between immigrant women who arrived as children and worked at the top of their pay distributions.
Age has an impact on the GWG as well. The report indicates that there has been progress among immigrant women aged 25 to 29 who arrived in Canada as adults. The gap has shrunk from 30.5% in 2007 to 12.0% in 2022.
Immigrant Women Working in Canada
Statistics According to the Labour Force Survey, 26.1% of immigrant women who arrived in Canada as adults employed in professional employment.
Immigrant women in Canada’s work market, particularly coloured women, have historically been overrepresented in lower-wage occupations such as lodging and food services or hospitality.
According to August 2023 labour force survey statistics, female employees (6.2%) were more likely to hold numerous jobs than men (4.7%), as were immigrants admitted to Canada less than ten years ago (6.9%). As a result, recent immigrant women are the most likely to have multiple jobs.
Women are less likely to be the Primary Applicants.
According to data from 2022, 1,215,200 women immigrated to Canada as secondary candidates in an economic immigration program. This means they are the spouse, partner, or dependent of someone who applied to move to Canada as a primary applicant under an economic immigration program like Express Entry. A total of 1,194,685 immigrant women entered as a result of family class sponsorship.
According to Statistics Canada, immigrant women who are not primary economic applicants frequently have more difficulties finding work due to their official language abilities and the difficulty in getting their talents, education, or experience recognized.
Furthermore, it is stated that many immigrant women face gendered barriers such as discrimination in the work market and gender division of labour in the family.
According to a September 2022 Statistics Canada report, 45% of immigrant women worked full-time when they were part of a marriage with children aged 1 to 5. In comparison, 64% of similarly situated Canadian-born women worked full-time.
The government of Canada allocated approximately $27 billion over five years in Budget 2021 to reduce some of the gendered burden on women, such as childcare, with the goal of developing a national early learning and childcare system alongside provinces and territories.
According to a TD Economics analysis released in June, the labour force participation rate among women with children under the age of six has increased by 4 percentage points since 2020. This indicates that around 111,000 more women have entered the labour sector in Canada since 2020, as childcare becomes more available and employers grow more flexible with hybrid arrangements.
