Science and Research Committee on Sept. 27th, 2023

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you.

I'll turn to Professor Beaudry now.

You talked several times about women not publishing as much, but I wanted to make sure that I heard you correctly. I think you said that for women who had the same grant funding as men, of those two groups, the group of women actually had to publish more.

It seems that not only did they tend not to have the time to publish because of all the other work that women take on outside of the job, but they had to publish more to get the same grant funding. Is that what I heard you say?

[Dr. Catherine Beaudry]

It's probably the opposite. Per dollar invested, they publish more. I would see it that way, as opposed to....

I'm an optimist.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Okay. I'm glad to hear the good side of it, but I heard it the other way. Women had to—and we hear this a lot—work harder to get “equality” with men.

[Dr. Catherine Beaudry]

I think it's something that we impose upon ourselves. Imposter syndrome is very much present. You think you ought to work harder to get your promotion and you feel you have to delay it until you're really, really good, whereas men will normally ask for a promotion whenever they feel they deserve it. There's a very big difference in the choice and what women decide to do.

They want to make sure that, when they apply for a promotion, they're going to get it for sure. It's a different strategy.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Quickly, about the situation in Quebec being better than in the rest of Canada, we heard some testimony in terms of.... That's what I thought I heard in terms of equality of pay.

Is part of that due to the availability of child care in Quebec and that history allowing women to work more?

[Dr. Catherine Beaudry]

Definitely.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

I'm sorry, Mr. Cannings. We're at the end of the time. We got a “definitely” under the wire.

Thank you, both, for getting those in.

Mr. Soroka, it's over to you for five minutes, please.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for coming today.

Professor Beaudry, I didn't hear.... In your study that you were doing, how many years did you go back? Is it from the 1980s, 1990s or 2000s? How far did you go back?

Are you finding a difference from when you first started? Let's say you went back as far as the 1980s or 1990s, and now you're into the 2000s. Is the pay gap better, the same or worse?

[Dr. Catherine Beaudry]

I didn't do a retrospective study in terms of pay gaps. I've done some retrospective studies on publishing and grants, but not on the pay gap. It was the 2017 data. I don't have the history.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Okay. That's fair enough. I was just wondering if it was. That's what I was asking for.

You also mentioned that women are dominating research in certain areas. In those areas where they're dominating, are they paid the same as men, better or worse?

[Dr. Catherine Beaudry]

Women are systematically paid less. When I talked about the domination, it's in terms of graduates. We have more at the bachelor's, master's and Ph.D. levels in much of the universities. We have more women who graduate now than men. Men dominate in physics and engineering, but that's about it. In terms of pay gaps, women systematically have less remuneration.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

You know, it's kind of surprising. Universities usually talk about how there are opportunities and equal opportunities for everyone regardless of your race, colour or sex, yet it's continually being proven that's not the case. Why do you think they're not following their own guidelines or, I guess, the structure?

[Dr. Catherine Beaudry]

I think they probably are. If you look at the age difference, in every cohort women are slightly younger than men, so that explains maybe a $2,000 or $3,000 difference in terms of cohort effects. If you look at the Statistics Canada data, they are by groups. You have the median salary or the means salary—I can't quite remember—of the whole of assistant professors, the whole of associate professors.... If you look at the data and you look at the age difference, very often it's one or two years. That is enough to explain some of the difference.

Then, if you add to it that some men will have asked for market premiums when they were first recruited, this market premium is kept all through their careers. If you start with better pay when you're an assistant professor, this will just accumulate as you move up the ladder. I think these are the factors that really affect it.

If you have some universities that don't have a collective agreement, where you make up for the time when you take maternity leave, that delays your promotion. We looked at the delay of promotion. People who have their kids between being an assistant professor and a full professor will be those, both men and women—

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Okay. I have a question, then. I'm sorry. I don't mean to interrupt, but my time is getting short.

I'm just curious. With this kind of information that you're telling us just now, what is the role of a government to try to make that more equal and fair to everybody?

[Dr. Catherine Beaudry]

I think women need to be aware that they can ask for a market premium. Very often, women fall off their chairs when they realize that some of their colleagues have market premiums, and they didn't even think for one minute to ask for them. My colleague was talking about how difficult it is to find a job—

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Okay. That still doesn't help me with that question, but thank you for that anyway.

I have another question. You talked about unions and how the faculties, if they're unionized, are actually paid more closely and there's not as much of a pay gap. Do you think that if universities or colleges were more unionized they would have a lot better bargaining, or is that not a factor?

[Dr. Catherine Beaudry]

Collectively, they would have a much stronger voice if they were unionized, as opposed to each person negotiating a salary in the office of the head of the department.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Thank you. I just wanted to get your feedback on that.

How much time do I have left? I think I'm done for the day.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you. It's sometimes quality over quantity.

Ms. Bradford, we'll go over to you for five minutes, please.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Continuing with the discussion about parental leave and how that has impacts, during the Government of Ontario study on the gender wage gap, the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations wrote:

Parental leave provisions that normalize a more equal distribution of childcare and domestic responsibilities would promote greater equality among men and women in the home while also working to ensure the career impact of parental leave is more equitably shared among women and men in the workplace.

I'll start with you, Dr. Beaudry. Can you share any data about the take-up of parental leave by gender among academic staff in your institution?

[Dr. Catherine Beaudry]

At my institution, the parental leave for men is five weeks. For women, it varies widely. I'm not sure I understand. Most professors will take the parental leave that they have at their disposal. As for whether they take care of the children, I don't know.

I have some interesting information. In other studies, we looked at the proportion of house chores and child care that was done by men and women. Systematically, women have the bulk of the child care, and that has a direct incidence on their publications, their citations and the repercussions of that.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Under employment insurance, I think there's some flexibility as to how the parents decide to share the benefits between them. I am wondering whether there are any additional changes to the parental benefit system within EI that you would recommend that would encourage a more equal distribution of parental leave. I think there is some flexibility, but I think the actual practice is that it's certainly not a fifty-fifty proposition.

[Dr. Catherine Beaudry]

It's definitely not. It's not a fifty-fifty proposition. You need a cultural change for men to decide to stay one year at home with their children and for women to do the same. Throughout society, that needs to change. It's not only in academia. The pressure under which academics are to perform.... I don't think that, you know.... Some of my female colleagues took two weeks of maternity leave. Others took a year. It depends on what the individual chooses. If it were a cultural change, then, yes, I think across society we would need to have this reflected, not only in academia.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

This next question is for both of you now.

Does your institution provide any additional child care services or parental benefits to promote a more equal distribution of child care responsibilities between the parents of different genders?

Each of you could maybe answer that.

[Robin Whitaker]

I guess I could start on that.

I will say, just on the previous question, that I think that's another place where unions do have a very important role to play in negotiating parental leave benefits. However, your question was about the provision of child care. While I think that institutions and faculty associations or faculty unions have a vital role to play in lobbying for those at the institutional level, I think that we've seen how important it is that governments play their roles in ensuring, at a systemic level, that child care is available.

We have the good example of Quebec, and it may be that's one reason, potentially, why things have been better at some institutions in Quebec. The federal government has played an important role there. I think we can extend that good role model of early childhood education to post-secondary education as well. Of course, the provision of affordable, accessible child care makes a huge difference to parents in every sector, not least in universities and colleges. That's a good model for the public funding of education across the board.

While we can look at what institutions can do, I think that, for this committee, it is really important to just underline that the federal government also has a key role to play. There's been some good movement, and we just have to continue building on that good work.