Statistics Canada has released updated data on measures of work — from maternity leave trends to night hours worked — to provide a glimpse into the Canadian workforce and the disparities within it.
More women working
Decades-long trends show more women working, taking up maternity leave and closing the gender pay gap.
The rate of working mothers aged 20 to 49, with at least one child under age three, grew from 33.5 per cent in 1976 to 77.1 per cent in 2022.
As more moms started working, better maternity and paternity benefits were introduced: Fifteen weeks of employment insurance (EI) for women with children (maternity leave) was introduced in 1971 followed by an additional 10 weeks of parental leave in 1990 (that a father could use). Parental leave benefits were extended to 35 weeks in 2000.
In 1997, 41.5 per cent of women with a child under age one took the benefit and by 2022 the rate hit 78 per cent. B.C. had the lowest maternity leave participation, at just 68.5 per cent.
From 2012 to 2017, seven in 10 fathers took leave of some type after the birth or adoption of their child. Over the same period, nine in 10 mothers took leave for their child.
Pay gaps persist but narrower
Between 1998 and 2021 the gender pay gap decreased from 18.8 per cent to 11.1 per cent. The average hourly wages of women increased 28.6 per cent, while men’s increased 17.4 per cent, in this time.
“In 1998, the median hourly wage of employees was $22.16 and the low pay threshold was $14.77. During that year, an average of one in four employees (25 per cent) earned less than the low pay threshold. By 2021, the median hourly wage had increased to $26.00 and the proportion of employees earning low pay was down nearly five percentage points to 20.1 per cent. The low-pay threshold was $17.33 in 2021,” notes Statistics Canada.
Earnings still differ for people of different races. In 2021, Chinese people earned slightly more than white people, with hourly wages of $33.83 versus $33.44. Blacks and Filipinos earn the least among racialized groups ($28.07 and $24.79, respectively).
How we work
The five job sectors that require the most job-related training are: health care and social services, education services, scientific and technical services, public administration and utilities. Conversely, food services, agriculture, retail trade, manufacturing and business services require the least amount of job-related training.
During the pandemic (2021), Canadians have spent slightly less time commuting, after the trend was rising commute times, between 2011 and 2016. Commuting time declined in 2021 to 22.8 minutes from 24.1 minutes in 2016 and 23.7 minutes in 2011, for workers in personal vehicles.
In April 2022, 323,000 people, or 1.7 per cent of workers aged 15 to 69, usually worked a regular night shift, defined as a seven-hour shift within the midnight-to-5 a.m. period. And one in 20 Canadian workers had a regular evening shift, between 6 p.m. and midnight. Immigrants (2.3 per cent) were more likely to work nights than those born in Canada (1.5 per cent) while it was younger people (aged 15 to 24) who worked more evening shifts, at a 14.2 per cent rate.
About one in three Canadians aged 15 to 69 had the flexibility to choose when their workday begins and ends and of those eight in 10 chose regular daytime hours.
The lengths to which we work
In 2022, work hours of “40 to less than 45 hours per week” remained the most common work schedule (41 per cent); however, the rate is 49.4 per cent for men and 31.7 per cent for women. Across all age groups, men work more hours than women. Of men over age 55, 13.4 per cent work 50 hours or more a week as opposed to 4.9 per cent of women.
Still, Canadians aren’t as overworked, as Statistics Canada’s report shows “the average amount of time workers usually spent at their main job or business in 2022 was nearly three hours less per week than in 1976.”
Over the same period of time, labour disputes have waned, from significant amounts in the 1980s leading to a “relatively rapid decline from 1982 to 1993 and a very slow downward trend until 2006,” when disputes have stabilized until today.
Meanwhile, unionization rates in the public and private sector are heading in opposite directions: “The unionization rate for private sector employees fell from 19 per cent in 1997 to 13.8 per cent in 2021. In contrast, 74.1 per cent of public sector employees were union members in 2021, 4.3 percentage points higher than in 1997,” notes Statistics Canada.
And some, but not many, Canadians hold multiple jobs, the rate of which doubled between 1976 and 1996 only to level off to today, when 5.1 per cent of Canadians holds two jobs. More women (5.9 per cent) than men (4.4 per cent) hold two jobs.
