Good afternoon, Madam Chair. Bonjour, mesdames et messieurs.
I realize there are time considerations, so I'll move straight into my subject matter, which is the latest labour market information we have about women. I think you probably know that women's labour market performance in Canada has been extremely strong in recent years, and their labour market outcomes have shown significant improvement over time.
Participation rates for women rose from 57% in 1996 to 62% in 2006, while those for men remained relatively stable. Similarly, the employment rate of women has risen more quickly than that of men over the past decade, and stood at 58% in 2006.
Unemployment rates have declined significantly for men and women and are currently at a 30-year low. In 2006 the rate for women was 6.1%. The female rate of unemployment has been lower than that of men for well over a decade; the differential is particularly pronounced for core-age women--that is to say, 25- to 54-year-olds.
Women's unemployment rates, like those for men, naturally vary by region and other characteristics. For example, the rates of unemployment are higher in Atlantic Canada, in Quebec, and in other parts of Canada. As well, unemployment rates are higher among the less skilled women.
Women are more highly represented than men in non-standard employment, particularly in part-time and temporary work. As Monica said, in 2006 the proportion of women in non-standard work was 40%, compared to 34% for men. This does have implications for income and earnings and private pension coverage rates.
Internationally, I think it's worth pointing out that Canadian labour market outcomes for women compare very favourably with those in other developed countries. For example, Canada ranks first among the G-7 countries in terms of the participation rate for women aged 25 to 64. Canada also ranked first among the G-7 in terms of the unemployment rate for prime-aged women.
In the area of education, women have made similar strides. Educational attainment has risen significantly for young women. This is true both In terms of high school dropout rates,which for women.... I think the most recent high school dropout rates are 7% for women, compared to 12% for young men.
In terms of post-secondary completion, 60% of all university graduates are women, 52% of graduates at the master's level are women, and 41% of graduates at the doctoral level are women. With these higher rates of graduation among women at the undergraduate and master's level, it's expected that women will surpass men in the number of doctoral graduates in the near future.
It's notable that the World Economic Forum found that in 2006 Canadian women had the highest rate of post-secondary education enrolment in the world.
The fields of study are changing as well. Fields that traditionally were male-dominated, such as medicine and law, have seen large increases in female enrolment over the past decade. I have some stats in my speaking points, but I won't do them.
On the wage gap, while women still, on average, earn less than men, the wage gap has shrunk over time. I want to pause on that, and maybe that's what I'll focus on for the last minute.
In 1997 average hourly wages for full-time prime-age women were 82.7% of those of their male counterparts; by 2005 this ratio had risen to 85.7%. I just want to focus in and say that notably among university graduates under 25 years of age who are working full time, there is virtually no difference between the earnings of women and men. I just want to point out that I'm citing figures using a different methodological approach. I'm glad StatsCan is in the room, because that's the method they encouraged us to use in a report by Madame Drolet a few years ago.
There are different ways to measure and different purposes for different kinds of measurement. This story is one of a closing gap, a narrowing gap, particularly in the young age cohort, but looking forward in the future, it's hard to tell. You can read a lot of studies that are trying to forecast what's going to happen to that wage gap. Will it continue to narrow? Will it not narrow? We're not sure.
In fact, what we've done is ask the OECD to do a comparison on wage gap by age cohort to compare what's happening in terms of education participation and wage gaps across OECD countries. In this way we can have a better understanding of what's happening across these countries that are generally facing the same kinds of challenges.
Thank you.