As soon as they leave CEGEP or university, when they are barely beginning their professional career, women already earn less than men in Quebec. This is the finding of a new report published Thursday by the Institut du Québec (IdQ) and the FutureSkills Research Lab at the University of Toronto.
“We had access to an unpublished database from Statistics Canada”, underlines Emna Braham, assistant director at the IdQ and co-author of the report, in an interview at the To have to.
“We were able to follow the same graduates over the years and we really compared the incomes of women and men who had the same background, that is to say who had followed the same studies, who had the same sector employment, etc. “, she adds.
Results ? One year after obtaining their post-secondary diploma, Quebec women earn on average 9% less than their male colleagues. In the five years following the end of their studies, the gap even widens to 16%. “This proves that – contrary to popular belief – it is not only when children arrive that the income gap widens, because we see gaps from the first year of work”, argues Mme Braham.
The gap is even more pronounced among the highest earning graduates, as the gender pay gap increases from 13% after the first year of work after graduation to 19% after five years. Conversely, the gap is a little less pronounced among graduates with lower incomes, rising from 4% to 12% over the same period.
Why does this gap persist?
The income gap between men and women has decreased significantly since the 1960s, with the arrival of more and more women on the labor market, we note in the IdQ report. However, this progress has stagnated since the mid-2010s, it is specified. Why ?
By showing that, on an equal path, women nevertheless earn less than men, the report highlights the fact that the difference in remuneration in Quebec does not seem to be solely linked to the fact that women more often go to sectors with higher low remuneration, such as that of services.
Among the possible explanations mentioned, women would negotiate their salary less than men, either because they would be more interested in benefits than in compensation, or because they would feel less comfortable asking for raises. of salary.
Women would also be less likely to go to the firms that pay the best, possibly because these companies are less welcoming towards women, in particular by offering fewer work-family balance measures.
Even if the study focuses on young women, the majority of whom are childless, “the anticipation of possible family responsibilities could play a role both in their career choices and their choice of employer”, note the authors of the report. “It has been widely documented that women’s heavier family responsibilities (child, caregiver) lead them to seek jobs that allow them to better balance work and personal life,” they point out.
“Beyond the fundamental arguments of justice and equity, this discrepancy [de rémunération] that persists between men and women affects economic prosperity in general”, defends the IdQ in its report.