Happy International Women's Day. I wanted to share my post from last year. Unfortunately still relevant. As the attacks against women & others intensify, we must must stand together for justice and security for all, as women did more than 100 yrs ago on the 1st IWD. #IWD bit.ly/3OVh0JX
3 million plus workers power Canada’s care economy, roughly 19 percent of all Canadian jobs.
Care work powers our communities - it deserves respect, protection, and fair pay. ✊ #IWD
The response to the economic challenges facing Canada can’t be a raft of narrowly focused workforce programs. It must take an inclusive approach that builds out essential community infrastructure. And that addresses persistent gender wage discrimination that holds us all back. bit.ly/4bot6E9
This position reinforces the myth that women’s labour is not essential to the economy, that the care economy, where millions of women work, is not the foundation of a strong and resilient country. 8/9
The federal government, for its part, seems intent on re-creating the Canadian economy of the 1960s through investment in male-dominated industries and the expansion of the military. 7/9
The cumulative impact of gender gap is devastating for workers and families. In the US, the gender pay gap costs the avg woman $500M+ in lost earnings over their careers and upwards of $1 million among Black, Hispanic, Native American women. The figures are similar here. 6/9
School teachers, health professionals & community support workers experienced negligible real wage growth between 2019-2025. Women working in nursing lost ground, their real wages falling by 1.3% over 6 years. Meanwhile, the incomes of men in senior management and finance have surged. 5/9
There has been some progress in recent years as wages rebounded after the pandemic, but the gains have not been enough to close long-standing pay inequities. Women workers remain concentrated in many low-waged sectors like retail and admin support. 4/9
It’s especially high especially among Indigenous and racialized workers and those with disabilities compared to non-Indigenous, non-racialized, non-disabled male workers, close to 40%. 3/9
On average, women earn about 87¢ per hour for each dollar earned by men. The gender disparity in annual earnings is even more pronounced, with women earning 72¢ on the dollar. That’s a gap of roughly $19,000/yr, a total of $200 billion in lost wages. One of the biggest among peer countries. 2/9
This International Women’s Day, many women workers are struggling in low-waged sectors of the economy while those working in public services have watched their wages stagnate. So where are we in closing the wage gap? Here’s an update. 1/9 bit.ly/4bot6E9
Important read from my colleague, Andrew Longhurst, on Alberta's move to further privatize health care and what it means for the rest of Canada. #cdnpoli
ottawacitizen.com/public-servi... “These sorts of services are the ones you don’t see day-to-day as a Canadian, but it’s the things that underpin the important decision-making that needs to be done” @pipsc-ipfpc.bsky.social
“Governments have a critical role to play in service of a more resilient and inclusive labour market and gender-just future—one where occupational segregation and earnings polarization do not limit women’s opportunities and financial security.” bit.ly/3Yz6Pwj
The gap between women in high-paying occupations and those in the lowest-paying occupations appears to be growing, the same dynamic evident among male workers as well. 8/9
The upshot is that women now make up a larger share of workers in the highest paid occupations & in the lowest-paid occupations. This study provides evidence that the patterns of female employment are not only tracking, but now influencing, the broader trends of polarization. 7/9
And there was little movement in wages among those engaged in low-paid work. In 2024, 34.8 per cent of women worked in low-waged occupations, effectively unchanged from 2019 (35.2 per cent). 6/9
At the same time, women in the care economy—teachers, nurses, and community service workers—saw real wage declines, in part due to wage caps and long-standing undervaluation of care work. 5/9
Wage growth was strongest for women who entered or advanced in high-paying fields such as management, finance and applied sciences, yet men’s wage gains in these same occupations were often larger, widening pay gaps at the top, especially in senior management. 4/9
While women’s average wages increased between 2019 and 2024, high inflation wiped out most early progress, and by 2024 women still earned just 87 cents for every dollar earned by men—the same as in 2019. 3/9
Both men and women experienced significant growth in management, professional and technical occupations over the past five years—pushing up women’s average wage—women continue to be over-represented in the lowest-paying occupations compared to male workers. 2/9
The employment recovery was a missed opportunity to reduce long-standing gender inequalities in Canada’s labour market according to findings in my study on occupational change between 2019-2024. See: The Widening Gap, out today. bit.ly/3Yz6Pwj Here’s a recap 🧵1/9
The richest Canadian CEOs now make 248 times more than the average worker wage in Canada. The @policyalternatives.ca's new CEO Pay report shows how the gulf between the rich and the rest of us keeps growing and what to do about it. @davidmaccdn.bsky.social
A life free of violence is a basic human right. The time for half measures is well and truly done.
The 14 young women murdered at the Polytechnique Montréal 35 years ago deserve no less.
The inescapable conclusion—corroborated by accounts of survivors and frontline workers in the anti-violence movement—is that women and gender-diverse people are at greater risk of violence today than before the pandemic.
These figures represent just the tip of the iceberg: only 19% of spousal violence cases are reported to the police. The figure is even lower for sexual assault incidents: 6%. The risk of violence is esp. high for Indigenous women, women with disabilities and gender diverse people.
Rates of sexual assault, physical assault and criminal harassment targeting women and girls are all much higher than in 2019, indeed much higher than a decade ago.
Violent crime against women is on the rise. Violence committed by intimate partners rose by 6.8% between 2019 and 2024. The rate of increase in violence committed by non-intimate partners was even higher: 11.4%.
Tomorrow is the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women in Canada. On Dec. 6, 1989, a gunman murdered 14 women at École #Polytechnique de Montréal because they were women. Remember their names. And continue to fight to end gender-based violence in all of its forms #EndGBV
Much can be done to dismantle these economic barriers. At the top of the list: Enhance and expand the new Canada Disability Benefit. Its design ensures it will have a negligible impact on the poorest of the poor. See our rec’s for a better benefit here: bit.ly/3ZhTOqN
