Women‑dominated jobs underpaid
The report also highlights women‑dominated occupations in health care, education and community services as being systemically undervalued.
“Care aides, educational assistants, early childhood educators, clerical staff, health care support workers, and social services workers carry enormous responsibility, skill, and emotional labour,” the AFL notes. “Yet these women-dominated occupations are routinely paid less than men-dominated roles requiring comparable training, accountability, and working conditions.”
According to the brief, unions “see this every day at the bargaining table,” and caregiving and service work have historically been treated as extensions of unpaid women’s labour. By contrast, construction, utilities, energy and trades—sectors dominated by men—are “structured and compensated very differently.”
National research cited by the AFL finds that nearly two‑thirds of the gender pay gap cannot be explained by education, experience, job attributes, occupation or industry, a pattern consistent with studies from the United States and United Kingdom. “The biggest factor causing the gender wage gap is discrimination,” the report concludes. “Women’s work is consistently undervalued and underpaid.”
The brief says the gender pay gap is wider for some groups of women. In 2022, the national average gap for core‑age women who immigrated to Canada as adults was 21%, and 20% for Indigenous women. Senior women earned 26% less than senior men, and women executives across Canada earned 56% less than male executives in 2021.