What we see from a lot of data we've examined recently is that women do better in the public service in a handful of occupations, particularly in Alberta. Women do better in low-skilled work. For example, people who work in front-line customer service or as clerks, people who work in hospital cafeterias or in government warehouses, earn better wages—the majority of whom are women—when they are public sector workers compared to their private-sector comparators. Where we see, in particular in Alberta, the opposite being the case, where you earn more in the private sector, is as an engineer or something like that.
Where many people will argue that the public sector is so much better paid than the private sector, we see that's not true in Alberta. In many occupations, the public sector is actually paid less than the private, but what people are criticizing when they say some occupations are paid better in the public sector are women's equality gains through collective bargaining at the lower-skilled occupations. Therefore, we see women being able to earn something approaching a living wage for things like working in a hospital cafeteria or working in a warehouse or working in various kinds of administration and clerical jobs.
I think we need to be really careful about comparing private to public sector wages and union to non-union work. However, overall, where women do better, particularly at the lower ends of the job market, is in places where they are able to avail themselves of some form of collective bargaining, of pay equity.