Looking at the trends in the rising rate of pension coverage among women, we have a study now at Statistics Canada, currently in progress. When we look at the characteristics of women in 1987, 1997, and 2007, what we find is that pension coverage is more prevalent among individuals who have higher earnings, higher education, employment in certain industries, and/or who have union coverage. Women, and particularly those in their forties and early fifties, now have higher earnings than they used to; they have higher education than they used to; many of them are employed in the public sector. This has increased the share of women with pension coverage, particularly through the mid-eighties to the mid-nineties.
When we look at the downward trend among men, what we see is that a shift out of high-coverage industries—manufacturing to some extent, but also a shift out of education and public administration—accounts for some of it. Also, there has been a downward trend in unionization among men, which is positively correlated with pension coverage, and that has accounted for some of the decline of coverage among men.