Yes, indeed, I'm happy to do that.
I would just like to clarify that in fact the federal legislation is really the third proactive piece of pay equity legislation in the country. Both Quebec and Ontario have had proactive pay equity legislation for some time. This is the first piece of proactive pay equity legislation in the federal jurisdiction.
As the member has rightly pointed out, it has been a long time coming. We are very happy to see that the complaint-based process has been replaced with a proactive process that puts the responsibility on the shoulders of the employers to undertake an analysis to determine whether or not there's a pay gap. It's not dependent any longer on women and unions to come forward and raise complaints and concerns about the pay equity system.
We anticipate that there will be significant benefits to this legislation. Aside from the obvious benefit of increasing the wages of women in federally regulated workplaces where there is found to be inequities, there are numerous other advantages in terms of the impact this can have on women and indeed on all of society. A study that was done in Ontario on their proactive pay equity legislation revealed that a number of psychosocial benefits resulted from proactive pay equity legislation—increased self-esteem among female workers, increased retirement savings available to women when they retired, increased financial security of single mothers and increased retention rates among female employees in workplaces.
I really want to underscore that last point. Pay equity has tremendous benefits for the business community. I'm pleased that in my outreach efforts, I'm seeing businesses recognize this. When an employer undertakes a pay equity analysis and communicates to its employees that it cares very much about gender equality in the workplace, that has enormous benefits for the business itself. There is quite a bit of research, which I alluded to in my opening remarks, that suggests that those businesses that promote gender equality are in fact more productive, more resilient and better at competing in the marketplace. Pay equity has been established to be good for business, good for workers and good for the economy. We know that paying women a fair wage for the work that is done will increase the household buying power. That will also fuel the economic recovery.
The more that women are able to participate equally in the workforce and increase their economic power and independence, the better off we all are. Of course, this will also have an impact on the children in Canada. That's important to note as well.