Gender pay gap narrowing in Canada’s health sector. Will COVID reverse that progress?
Global News
A global analysis by the WHO and ILO shows women health-care workers face a larger pay gap compared to other economic sectors, earning an average of 24 per cent less than men.
Gender pay gaps in the Canadian health sector are narrowing, but employment loss during the COVID-19 pandemic affected women more than men, according to a new report.
A global analysis by the World Health Organization (WHO) and International Labour Organization (ILO) released on Wednesday shows that in Canada, the wage divide between men and women working in the health and care sector almost halved over the last decade to 4.7 per cent in 2019 from 8.5 per cent in 2000.
This means, on average, earnings for female workers were 4.7 per cent lower than their male counterparts.
In contrast, the pay gap in the United States remained almost the same and increased in several European countries, such as Czechia, Estonia and Hungary, over the last decade.
“It’s disappointing that we aren’t at pay equity yet, especially as a country that does have pay equity legislation,” said Morgan Hoffarth, past president of the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario.
The COVID-19 pandemic, that has pushed many health-care workers to the brink, saw average hourly wages growing faster for Canadian women in the health and care field. This narrowed the gender gap in monthly earnings to 14 per cent in December 2020 from 19 per cent in January 2019.
However, these were only marginal improvements, the WHO and ILO said, given the crucial role front-line workers have played to fight COVID-19.
And health-care workers, who are predominantly women, say they are not adequately being compensated for their work.
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