Thank you, John.
Thank you to the committee.
The conference was a rousing success. If we seem a little tired, it's because we were running hard for the last three days, getting that finished. Thank you, again.
I'm going to talk a little bit about the numbers of women in teaching, and then move from that into a more general look at women in terms of society in general, and then turn it back to John for some of our suggested remedies.
In 2003-04, 67% of full-time Canadian teachers were women and 78% of part-time Canadian teachers were women—Stats Canada figures, and they relate with ours as well. It's interesting to note that 57% of male teachers in the 2001 census reported earnings of $50,000 or more compared with only 37% of female teachers at the same time, for the same education. In 2001, 26% of male teachers earned under $40,000 compared to 26% of female teachers.
Lower average salaries of female teachers result in lower average pensions for female teachers, so that not only is there less buying power currently in their career, they are also saddled with this lower economic status for the rest of their life and their pensionable service.
It's interesting to note that women occupy only approximately 45% of school administrator positions in spite of the fact that they represent 67%. That fact alone is also one of the factors in why their salaries are lower, because of course, administrators receive an allocation, a bonus for being administrators.
That's changing gradually. In our elementary schools we're seeing more women become administrators. But it's still true that it's a male-dominated profession at the high school level.
The average earnings of employed women are still substantially lower than those of men, even when they're employed on a full-time basis. In 2003, women working full-time, full-year, had an average earning of $35,000—71% of what their male counterparts made.
Women are more affected by chronic unemployment than men, particularly female lone parents. Lone women had the highest degree of volatility in earnings of any family type during the last two decades, as noted by Stats Canada.
Earnings over the past two decades have been stagnant for men, increasing in 2000 for the first time since 1980. The good news is that in contrast to that, earnings have increased steadily in each decade for women. So some of the work that committees like yours have done and the work of the teachers' and nurses' associations has begun to bear fruit. However, despite gains in earnings over the past two decades, women still earn less than men, not only in teaching but right across the board.
Women have made gains in employment because of increased hours and weeks of work, and notably because they have invested heavily in higher education, leading to better-paying occupations. Income of women in the early years of their careers, though, is affected by many factors—child care, access to unemployment, provisions for top-up from such things as maternity leave, and of course, bearing the brunt of their children's educational costs.
Therefore, the cuts in programs like the status of women program and the literacy skills that have happened over the last little while have definitely reduced the probability of improvement of circumstances for women and other groups. As John mentioned earlier, we believe that programs focused on helping children will do much to help those women as well.
I'll turn it back over to John for some of our suggestions.