This text is part of the special Feminine Leadership notebook
In 2022, men earned 12% more than women in the country, according to the latest data from Statistics Canada. While we can be pleased that this wage gap tends to narrow over the years, there is still a whole range of inequalities that we cannot measure, due to a lack of data on assets, notes researcher Maude Pugliese, who intends to act to reverse this trend.
The issue of income inequalities between men and women is quite well documented in the country. But it is quite rare that we focus on the heritage aspect. However, in Canada, statistics on wealth (all of a person’s net assets) are measured in household terms, which has the effect of hiding the inequalities between men and women in couples, i.e. 40% of the Quebec population, explains associate professor at the National Institute of Scientific Research Maude Pugliese.
To try to get a more representative portrait of the situation, the person who holds the new Canada Research Chair in financial experiences of families and wealth inequalities launched in 2022 a first survey on the subject in Quebec. And the results are quite striking: the average net worth of men is 30% higher than that of women in the general adult population. And among people in common-law relationships, the gap becomes dizzying, reaching 80%.
“It shows to what extent, when we don’t ask people in relationships how wealth is distributed within the household, we miss a big part of the story and we hide a lot of inequalities,” believes Maude Pugliese.
The researcher took advantage of the fact that she was conducting a large survey on debt to survey the 4,800 respondents about their individual assets. And even though the results are very rough, she hopes it could influence national pollsters to change their data collection method.
Income versus wealth
The question of heritage is a very important one, underlines the researcher, since even if it is small, a few thousand dollars saved can change everything in the event of unforeseen circumstances.
The survey conducted by INRS also showed that the richer the people surveyed were, the greater the wealth gap between the genders. “For me, what this reflects is that in our society, there is really a very great concentration of heritage,” notes M.me Pugliese. There are people who are really very rich and many people who ultimately don’t have much. »
But heritage also raises other questions. Do women have access to the same financial advice services as men? “In couples, it is often the men who will take care of the finances,” points out M.me Pugliese. So maybe they’re going to have a lot of opportunities to learn about it. If there is a separation, it can be complicated to make up for it afterwards. »
“This whole world of investment, rates of return, for the moment, it’s a bit of a black box, we don’t know much,” she adds. But we can think that there are gaps. »
Women less likely to inherit
Another mechanism that deserves to be studied is certainly that of inheritances and intergenerational transfers. Data from European countries that have taken an interest in it show a very clear disadvantage for women, points out M.me Pugliese. “It often takes place in the context of a family business,” she explains.
In 2020, the researcher participated in the Financial Security Survey, which collected data on wealth in Canada, and although she was not able to measure the difference within couples, “women were less likely that men declare having already inherited during their life.
A striking observation to say the least. “This is part of an investigation: I cannot say that this is something that we will see today in 2024 in Quebec, but it is certainly a subject that we would like to explore in more depth, with the Chair team,” indicates the researcher.
The INRS professor hopes to be able to study this question in particular with more qualitative surveys: what have people received, what do they themselves give to their children and how do they make these decisions? ?
The next surveys by the Canada Research Chair in financial experiences of families and wealth inequalities should therefore make it possible to collect data which will shed some light on this little-known aspect of gender inequalities… i.e. the first step before being able to address possible solutions to reverse this trend.
Reduce gaps by training financial services advisors
This content was produced by the Special Publications team at Duty, relating to marketing. The writing of the Duty did not take part.