...Abstract The purpose of this paper is to discuss if pay equity legislation has worked to eliminate the wage gap between males and females in the workforce. This paper will discuss current pay equity legislation. Federal legislation includes the Canadian Human Rights Act, the Equal Wages Guidelines, and the Canada Labour Code, Part III. Provincial legislation includes the Ontario Pay Equity Act. This paper will also cover a brief time line of the history of pay equity and who is actually covered by pay equity legislation. Lastly, this paper will discuss the gender wage gap and why it exists. Graphs from Statistics Canada will aid in demonstrating the current wage gap and the significant difference in pay for males and females. Has Pay Equity Legislation Worked? Men and women are different in many ways, physically, genetically and anatomically; however they are the same in that they are both human beings who have a right to fair and equal treatment. All throughout history women seem to have taken a back seat to their male counterparts, as women were not officially deemed persons until 1929 after a Supreme Court hearing, they had to struggle to get recognition in the workplace, and to this day are continually fighting for pay equity in the workplace. Pay equity is defined as “the principle that men and women should be compensated equally for work requiring comparable skills, responsibilities, and effort” (Pay Equity, n.d., para. 1). The goal of pay equity “is to stop discrimination...
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...differences in male and female wages using data from Statistics Canada’s annual Survey of Consumer Finance (SCF) and Survey of Labour Income Dynamics (SLID). In addition to information on annual income, this study also looks at hourly wage data, which is a more precise measure as the earnings data series takes into account the price of labour as well as quantity (i.e. individuals’ work/leisure preferences). This study looks at the variables of race, highest achieved level of education as well as age to examine the existence of a wage gap. Like other studies, we have found that males have a higher wage in each of these areas, with females earning an average of 80 – 87% of the males’ average. Furthermore, we have examined the existence and size of a wage gap in three industries; law, nursing and the education industry. Finally, we looked at the Canadian gender-based wage gap statistics compared to International gender-based wage gap statistics. We deduced that there is, indeed, a wage gap in each of the mentioned industries, and can be partially attributed to human capital theory and occupational segmentation theory, however, a substantial portion of the gap remains unexplained. 2. General Existence of Gender-Based Wage Differentials in Canada The existence of gender based wage differentials in North America have been well documented for decades. Although female-male wage ratios have closed significantly since the mid 1980s, progress in wage equalization has seen some stabilization...
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...Whether observed through the perspective of the media or within a historical context, women at a national premise have a greater awareness in the struggle of gender equality and female identification. Feminism looks at how the social, economic and political structures affect and shape women at the individual level. Accordingly, feminist theories analyze the relationship between gender differences, gender inequality and oppression. The idea of ‘waves’ in Canadian Feminist movements have been both diverse and dynamic in the act of coalition to obtain specific goals and broader changes in society. At the beginning of the 20th century, industrialization and nation-building came attached with a gender ideology that prescribed the public/private division between male and females. In modern-day Canada, issues concerning equal rights in the public and private sphere of women have become more relevant to the female community. In contemporary Canada, the discussion of sex work and the ‘entertainment industry’ is a controversial subject to many women. The traditional view is expressed to view these workers as individuals who have chosen this path as ‘immoral criminals’ or ‘victims’ of aggression. There is not much sympathy for these women as they are degraded to be invisible within Canadian society. Given the blind eye, these sexual deviants have historically served as an representation to regulate women of the public sphere. However, it is necessary to make distinctions of the ‘hierarchy’...
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...currency, individuals have exploited others for the benefit of themselves – due to the origination of the social system Capitalism, there are new ruthless forms of exploitation that has resulted in millions suffering. In a capitalistic society such as Canada, exploitation in the workplace occurs daily. Exploitation can be defined as the utilization of another person for selfish purposes (William Morris, 2000). Since the rise of the social structure Capitalism, there has been a distinctive split between two classes of people – the bourgeoisie and proletarian (Karl Marx, 1848). To some, capitalism is the ‘end-all be-all ‘ social system, but these people are more than likely one of the fortunate few who have benefitted from it. By the fortunate few I mean the bourgeoisie class - the owners of the means of production. They own the capital and the resources (factories, farms, stores) to grow their wealth further, but they need labor to do so. Then there is the proletariat class - the labor. I reference them as the labor because in order to feed their families, they need money, and they have no means to make money other then to sell their labor. It is between these two classes that exploitation occurs. The bourgeoisies offer the lowest wages that the proletariats are willing accept, that way the bourgeoisie consume all the available profit for themselves. This exploitation is prevalent in the Canadian workplace. In this essay, I will investigate how the Canadian capitalistic structure exploits...
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...A Study of pay Inequity between Genders Abstract As long as an American woman is putting in the same amount of hours with the same qualifications and experience in the same occupation as an American male, and yet taking home a wage that is any lower, she is not being treated fairly as an equal. Contrary to many arguments, it is unquestionable that a wage gap exists, and while there are various ideas as to the most probable cause, there is no reason why this gap should continue to go uncorrected or unchanged. Our government should take concrete steps to close the gender wage gap because it violates women’s rights and equality. The story begins at a local Radio Shack, it is Friday, payday. As employees open their paychecks, they are awaiting their annual raise. As one employee, Neha opens up her paycheck she finds she has not yet received a raise; she has waited all year for this raise. She is very sad to find she did not receive one. She begins to think maybe she did something wrong. She starts to think back through the year, and cannot seem to come up with any solutions as to why she did not receive one. She worked especially hard that year in hopes to receive a good raise and felt she deserved to be recognized for it. In the break room she overheard her co-worker John bragging to their colleagues about his second raise. Now John is making a dollar twenty five more per hour than her even though they both have been working at Radio Shack for...
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...Employment Outlook © OECD 2008 Chapter 3 The Price of Prejudice: Labour Market Discrimination on the Grounds of Gender and Ethnicity Despite some progress, there is still evidence of discrimination on the grounds of gender and ethnic or racial origins in OECD labour markets. Field experiments show pervasive ethnic discrimination in many countries. Indirect evidence shows that on average at least 8% of the gender employment gap and a larger proportion of the gender wage gap can be attributed to discrimination. Virtually all OECD countries have enacted anti-discrimination laws in recent decades, and evaluations as well as cross-country analysis suggest that, if well-designed, these laws can be effective in reducing disparities in labour market outcomes. However, enforcement of antidiscrimination legislation is essentially based on victims’ willingness to claim their rights. Thus, public awareness of legal rules and their expected consequences (notably, victims’ costs and benefits of lodging complaints) is a crucial element of an effective policy strategy to establish a culture of equal treatment. Moreover, legal rules are likely to have more impact if the enforcement is not exclusively dependent on individuals. In this respect, specific agencies may play a key role. 139 3. THE PRICE OF PREJUDICE: LABOUR MARKET DISCRIMINATION ON THE GROUNDS OF GENDER AND ETHNICITY Introduction Employment outcomes are far from being evenly distributed among the various sociodemographic...
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...“Why are gender and difference issues so important in understanding the potential for skills training, and work and learning in both Canada and the ‘economic south’?” The lives of women in the recent past have changed dramatically. There are more women now who are educated than ever before, and a great percentage of them have forged ahead in the labour market. The pace of change is improving at fast rate with both developed and developing countries working towards bringing around a change. But despite the numerous developments in this area, there still exists the issue of gender gap that limits the progress of women workers in the paid workforce. This paper discusses the topic of gender differences in OECD countries and how it affects the process of work and learning of women in both Canada and the economic south. In almost all the OECD countries, women participation in the workforce has steadily increased. There are more women participating in the all kinds of jobs and they continue to enter the workforce in rising numbers. But still gender inequality continues to persist and is a topic that dominates the sad plight of women. There are OECD reports that Scandinavian countries have the lowest ratio of such issues due to well-equipped infrastructure that supports child-care and family-friendly workplaces. Though this seems like a rather outdated subject, the gendered work, wage gap, inequality are still rather the most pressing issues in countries like Canada in particular...
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...Eloïse Stark Midterm Essay How to explain that women still get lower wages than men in the OECD countries? In western countries since the Second World War, women’s growing participation on the labor market has been one of the most profound transformations not only of the economy but also of society as a whole. Dual income families have become the norm and in a bid for sexual equality, most OECD countries have created laws to protect pay equality for men and women, such as the Equal Pay Act in 1963 in the US, or the article 119 of the EEC treaty. Nonetheless, women continue to earn less than men in all OECD countries. There are different ways of measuring this. Comparing annual or monthly earnings shows the difference between what both sexes “take home”, which is interesting from a sociological perspective. However we shall focus on the “gender pay gap”, defined as the “the relative difference in the average gross hourly earnings of women and men working full time”. This shows the difference between the actual “price” of women and men’s labor, taking into consideration the fact that men work more hours on average. How does the gender gap stand today? Despite differences between countries the gender pay gap remains a persistent characteristic of OECD labor markets. In 2006, women earned an average of 16% less than men, per hour worked. … Although we can see a slow but continuous drop over the past few decades in all countries In OECD countries, which are...
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...Discrimination in the labor market University of Minho, Braga, Portugal June 2012 SUMMARY This paper analyzes three types of discrimination (age, sexual orientation, gender and race) in the labor market in the different countries all over the world. The results show that the skin color discrimination is the most widespread type of discrimination followed by the sexual orientation discrimination. Unexpected result was about gender discrimination which is the least likely in the EU but the evidence indicates that sex discrimination remains a possible explanation of the unexplained gender pay gap between men and women. Key words: labor market, discrimination, women, skin color, sexual orientation. JEL: J71 Introduction It’s all about the money, isn’t it nowadays? We need to buy our food, pay our bills and educate our children. Money is the “necessity bad” today. But even in our modern, global, without barriers world, world in which they teach us that everything is possible, there is still big inequity. The chance for some people to achieve job and to feed their families is much lower than to the others. Even nowadays not only dream and ambitions are enough. When it comes for having a job and building career there is also comes the problem with discrimination in the labor market. This topic is one of the most difficult for researches and usually is hard to be proved that this still exists nowadays. In the following paper we will discuss discrimination in the labor...
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...In a democratic liberal society today, the value of individual’s is vital. Every individual’s voice must be heard through democratic means. Examples of democratic means would be protests and petitions. Individuals have the right and should be able to freely practice their rights and freedoms without any collective rights and freedoms restrictions. This means that individuals are needed in society in order to have a balanced and sustainable social, economic, and political system. In source one, the image provided shows British women lined up against the side of a London road peacefully protesting about women’s right and freedoms as well as gender equality. In the distance, their are men walking around in small groups going about their work....
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...WOMEN’S QUOTA IN NORWAY - A GOOD PIONEER FOR GERMANY? | Table of Contents 1. Introduction 3 2. Definition Women’s/ Gender Quota 3 3. Gender quota in Norway 4 3.1 The road to the quota 4 3.2 Impacts and Changes 5 4. Gender pay gap in Germany 7 4.1 Causes for the Gender pay gap 7 4.2 gender quota in germany 8 5.Conclusion 9 List of Literature 9 Books/magazines 9 Internet Sources 10 Illustrations 10 1. Introduction The situation for women in every kind of different sectors has changed over the last centuries and decades. Nevertheless the result of an UNO- analysis in the mid 1990’s states that women have not the same chances as men in any society in the world even though that there has been made a huge progress. As Paragraph 1 of Article 3 of the German Basic Law declares, “All persons shall be equal before the law.“ In addition Paragraph 2 of the same article states, “Men and women shall have equal rights. The state shall promote the actual implementation of equal rights for women and men and take steps to eliminate disadvantages that now exist.“ In contrast to this Article of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) describes that after a study made in 2012 Germany has one of the biggest wage gap between men and women among all countries in Europe. The study says as well that there are fewer women in management positions. This arouses the question “What are the...
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...Union Density: Canada vs. USA Union density refers to the amount of paid employees that are union members. Historically, union density has increased between 1930 and 1950 from 14 percent to 30 percent. At that time union growth in Canada was extremely behind United States. This was caused by the legislation that was going on with workers and their rights to form and join unions. However it wasn't until the mid 1950s that Canadian union organizations caught up to the US. Despite this growth, the union density was yet on the verge of steady decline in both countries. The slow growth stage of union membership in the labor force was harshly upturned in Canada but remained the same in the US. As a result, for the past 30 years, a huge gap formed in the importance of unions and collective bargaining in the two countries, Riddell & Freeman (1993). The union density in the US had declined considerably in the past three decades. Although the two countries share many similarities between economies and industrial relations it’s likely to question why declines occurred in the unions of the United States but not in Canada. The reason why union density declined in the US was because of the structural changes of the economy and the labor force. Majority of the employment changes that took place in the past 30 years was that they moved away from manufacturing, focused more towards services, preferred white collar rather than blue collar, shifted from full time male workers to female...
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...report will be focusing on women’s progress in the Canadian workforce, specifically barriers that women have overcome, and the trends towards reducing gender inequality. I want emphasize the fact that it has been a slow progress and that a glass ceiling is still a predominant issue today. The first topic will be about the progress towards gender equality in the Canadian workforce. I will talk about some trends leading to this improvement. The first trend will be about the role of the women’s movement in the 1960’s. This movement was towards giving women greater equality in wages, working conditions, and to gain recognition of their social, economic and political position in society. I will talk about how this movement sparked the battle of gender equality in North America. The second trend will be focusing on the steady growth in the labour force participation among women with children. According to Statistics Canada, 64.4% of women with children under the age of 3 were employed, more than double the proportion of 27.6% in 1976. I will also talk about how there is a slight trend towards men taking more child care responsibility. The third trend will be about women and education. More specifically, how women seem to be more educated (graduating with more undergrad degrees) than men today. Based on data from Statistics Canada; women outnumbered men in 2009 with 34.3% of women having a university degree, compared to only 26% of men. In this section, I will also talk about how...
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...(12188874) WORKPLACE GENDER EQUALITY INTRODUCTION: In earlier century, the role and importance of women were totally different as compared to today because in the past, there was a general belief that the man was responsible to take care of woman in all sense as men are stronger than women. But today situations has been advance, women have various duties related to inside of home and outside of home. In the past, women have handled only the household area and they have been restricted to go outside for earning money but due to globalization, the role of women have been changed and women are being capable to work in all areas like economical, business, political, social and many more with same responsibilities and duties like men. Nowadays, “Gender Equality” is one of the debatable issues. Gender equality means men and women get equal importance, value, rights, treatments, positions and opportunities irrespective of their gender. Gender equality is obtained when people are being capable of getting equal awards, benefits, means, freedom, scope and chance nevertheless even if they are men or women. In the latest era, most of the countries in the world have shaped symbolic development in the direction of gender equality. The main purpose of gender equality is to obtain just identical results for both male and female and not the uniform results for all human beings in the workplace. Due to all these reasons and to control the situations, the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 is...
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...Resistance explores the issue of violence against women in the Canadian context. Mann examines the government's actions made towards violence against women, statistics regarding violence against all genders, and the process of invisibilization that is occurring against women violence. Although women may not be the only sex dealing with violence, the majority of perpetrators are men. Whether that be male-female relationships or same-sex relationships, they are constantly the main instigators. Although the process of educating the public about violence that men face as well, there is a larger issue at hand. The Canadian federal effort should not be identifying the victims...
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