Evidence of meeting #52 for Status of Women in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was data.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Director, Labour Statistics Division, Statistics Canada
That's not something Statistics Canada could comment on. I believe that's something that ESDC would have commented on when they were here.
Conservative
Tilly O'Neill-Gordon Conservative Miramichi, NB
Okay.
You also mentioned that one thing for sure is that higher unemployment is an issue. Do you see this as being one reason that girls don't go into these studies as much as they go into the other studies? What can we do to improve this?
Director, Labour Statistics Division, Statistics Canada
Again, I can't comment on that.
Conservative
Tilly O'Neill-Gordon Conservative Miramichi, NB
The questionnaires you send out, have there been many changes to them over the years?
Director, Labour Statistics Division, Statistics Canada
Not in this area. We're using standard—
Conservative
Tilly O'Neill-Gordon Conservative Miramichi, NB
Not in this area, you say. They all remain the same.
Director, Labour Statistics Division, Statistics Canada
Basically the way in which the labour data is collected is by using the International Labour Organization standard for employment and unemployment over time. It's the same questions over time.
Conservative
Tilly O'Neill-Gordon Conservative Miramichi, NB
Okay.
What support is in place now to assist women pursuing skilled trades? Do you see any at all, even though it might not be in your field? Do you see any, or do you hear of any women talking about some of the support they're getting?
Director, Labour Statistics Division, Statistics Canada
Again, that's not something I see at Statistics Canada.
Conservative
NDP
The Chair NDP Hélène LeBlanc
To complete the question of Mrs. O'Neill Gordon, because I don't know all of the questionnaire by heart, are there questions to address a little bit the questions that were raised? I don't mean questions about programs but maybe about what prevents people from going into those trades. Are there questions such as that?
Director, Labour Statistics Division, Statistics Canada
There are none in the national household survey.
NDP
The Chair NDP Hélène LeBlanc
No, the national household survey is really basic questions that are asked. From those answers you can aggregate it to classify.
NDP
The Chair NDP Hélène LeBlanc
I think that's the difficulty of being able to answer the questions that are more about....
Director, Labour Statistics Division, Statistics Canada
Yes, you mean some of the barriers, the reasons they did not. I could go back to see if some of the specific education surveys do that. You're sort of looking at reasons why people didn't do things, which are a little bit harder because what you need to do is find people who thought about a career choice and then decided not to do it. It's a little bit harder from a statistical point of view.
Conservative
Tilly O'Neill-Gordon Conservative Miramichi, NB
Yes. My point is that this is from 1991 to 2011. I just think that there would be a lot of changes that could have occurred over that time. If the questionnaire is not addressing those changes, then we're probably not getting a true picture of how the women feel out there. That was mainly my point of view. I thought in our study it would be important that we have an idea of where we could go in line of changing this information and this questionnaire, if that was of any help to us.
Director, Labour Statistics Division, Statistics Canada
The national household survey is really looking at taking a snapshot of the population at different points in time. There's a lot of value in the sort of surveys you're looking at. The snapshot is one thing. The other sort of survey you're talking about is looking beyond that snapshot and learning what the underlying issues are that are driving the decisions people make. Is that right?
Conservative
Director, Labour Statistics Division, Statistics Canada
I could do a little bit of digging to see if there are some surveys that we've done in the past that may inform that.
Conservative
Tilly O'Neill-Gordon Conservative Miramichi, NB
Okay, maybe I wasn't making myself clear in my questions, but that's where I was headed, to see if there should be changes to the questionnaire to focus...and if there is anything we should be looking at in our study.
NDP
The Chair NDP Hélène LeBlanc
If I can add, which I don't do that often, maybe to answer your question or your concern, as Ms. Hale was mentioning, it's kind of a snapshot and they have to have the same question in order to be able to see the trend.
I think Status of Women has looked at some of the questions or has done a study that could answer some of your concerns, if I'm not mistaken, but I might be. Thank you for opening up the discussion. I think it's great.
Ms. Duncan, it is now your turn. You have seven minutes.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Thank you, Ms. Hale, for coming today.
My concern is the data that's been presented today is only for ages 25 to 34. I would like to see that data to 60 because women are working to 60 or 65, or much later at the university. I think that once we see those numbers over 34 and we see the disparity at the 25 to 34 age, they're going to be much higher as you go up.
Could that be tabled with this committee, please, for each age cohort? I'd like to see it in five-year cohorts, but if we don't have that data, I'd like to see it at 10-year cohorts.
Director, Labour Statistics Division, Statistics Canada
As I was explaining, this is not an existing dataset.
Is that an official request of the committee to have it come out?