OTTAWA - Women are making progress in narrowing the wage gap with men, but are still a distinct minority when it comes to jobs with power and influence, says a new study.
The , released Tuesday, finds that women still earn between five and 15 per cent less than men, even when factors such hours worked, productivity or occupational choice are considered.
But the good news is that women are entering the workforce in large numbers, staying longer and significantly narrowing the wage gap -- and there's reasons to believe they will continue to narrow that gap over the next few decades.
"Link the dominance of women in post-secondary education and the fact that almost all the jobs available require post-secondary education, you got to think women have to fare better than men in the future,'' said TD chief economist Don Drummond, who co-authored the report.
"Employers are going to need them and they are going to have to make the facilitating arrangements that overcome some of the impediments that have been there in the past.''
In fact, women already out-earn their male partners in about 28 per cent of Canadian families.
But when it comes to what the report calls "in line positions,'' or jobs that have to do with a company's bottom line, women fill fewer than 10 per cent of those positions.
Little progress has been seen at the board level, also, where women represent only about 12 per cent of corporate directors.
"That does grab you as a problem,'' Drummond said. "It probably relates to this aversion women have of math and applied sciences because more of those positions would be of that nature, as opposed to the human resources and communications positions.''
Drummond says girls gravitate away from math and science courses in later school years and at least some of that may be related to societal influences and expectations, or the way the subjects are taught.
The report notes that several studies, in Canada and internationally, testing 13, 15 and 16-year-olds, all show that although boys do better in math and science, the difference is statistically insignificant. On the other hand, girls' advantage in reading was large.
"An interesting finding in an unpublished study, we don't seem to have that kind of gender gap in Chinese students in Canada, at any level including the senior levels. So again, it doesn't seem something that is programmed in our DNA,'' said Drummond.
Like all financial institutions, the TD Bank is increasingly marketing its financial products and services -- from mortgages and consumer loans to investment advice and mutual funds -- to women, hoping to tap into a growing and profitable market.
In Tuesday's study, the bank also points to several trends that suggests inequality in the workforce will lessen in the next few decades.
For instance, two million jobs were created for university graduates since 1990, as opposed to only 417,000 jobs for high-school educated workers.
As well, service-producing jobs where women do well, such as in the health care and education sectors, account for 75 per cent of today's knowledge economy.
Even in male-dominated professions, there has been progress. Since 1980, women's participation in non-traditional occupations of management and professions has risen by 93 per cent. And women represented 25 per cent of architecture and engineering BA degrees in 2004, which while low, is up from just 17 per cent in 1992.
One ironic finding, the authors note, is that women may have not come quite as long a way in their homes as they have in the workplace.
Housework, such as cooking, cleaning and shopping for groceries, is still pretty much women's work. But as women's participation in the workforce increases and, especially as their salaries increase, that too may be changing.
Women who earn $100,000 or more, the study finds, are much more likely to be with partners who pitch in at home. Men are also becoming more involved as primary care givers to their children.
"Over the next few decades, the market will place women and men on a more equal footing in the workplace ... and more men will need to learn to operate the washing machine,'' the report concludes.
