Status of Women committee  Yes, unpaid work was originally put on to the census of population in the early seventies, because that was actually the only vehicle available. Since then the generalized social survey has a module on time use, which is a much more appropriate way of looking at unpaid work and general time use.

Status of Women committee  That's a survey I'm not at all familiar with, so....

Status of Women committee  It's not my area of expertise at all.

Status of Women committee  As I mentioned, there are definitely more women participating in post-secondary education. Looking at data from the labour force survey, women are participating more and more in post-secondary education, so there's a natural movement in that.

Status of Women committee  There's not really any issue— I'm sorry. I apologize for cutting you off.

Status of Women committee  Basically we're using the national household survey and the census, so those are every five years, and the labour force survey collects occupation data on a monthly basis. In order to do this sort of study in which you're looking at both field of study at a very detailed level and occupation data at a very detailed level, you need the depth of information that you can get only from the national household survey, which is done every five years.

Status of Women committee  The interest of the committee gave us an opportunity to dig into the data. We have produced studies previously—and I believe the committee may have seen these—looking at field of study information, looking at what sort of fields people had based on their level of educational attainment, but we hadn't actually pursued looking at STEM-related occupations, so it was an opportunity for us to dig into the data bit.

Status of Women committee  Basically I think it's not so much that we would need more information. It would probably be a matter of doing more investigation as to how we would want to classify the occupations we already have into those that are truly STEM occupations and those that are not. There could be more investigation into what is truly a STEM occupation.

Status of Women committee  I would say that we have all of the jobs correctly identified. It's about classifying those jobs as STEM jobs or not. It's more a theoretical exercise of saying, is that truly a STEM job? It's much more of a research issue of determining what you would consider. For example, is teaching physics a STEM job or not?

Status of Women committee  There have been some studies using other information. There are some international studies that have looked at how well schoolchildren at 15 years of age are doing in math and science and where they end up later. I can send you some actual examples. For instance, one study found that young men with lower marks in high school were more likely to choose a STEM program than young women with higher marks were.

Status of Women committee  I think that's the first time I've ever managed that.

Status of Women committee  Basically, it's part of the national household survey and part of that was in the long form census. Everybody was asked about their highest level of schooling and what field of study they took. That was across the board, for anything they'd taken. The responses were then classified according to what they reported.

Status of Women committee  Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I'd like to thank the committee for the opportunity to speak with you on information related to your study. Using data from the 1991 census of population and the 2011 national household survey, I'll provide information on the number and proportion of women holding a certificate in a skilled trade, mechanic and construction, or a diploma or a degree in a STEM-related field of study, also the change over time and the share of women working in skilled trades or an occupation requiring a STEM-related field of study diploma or degree, as well as labour market outcomes of women versus men in skilled trades or in occupations requiring a STEM-related field of study degree or diploma.

Status of Women committee  Asking a statistician about projections is one of those things where, when we do a projection, we have to look at what our your assumptions are and if they are valid. I really couldn't speculate on what it would look like.

Status of Women committee  As you're pointing out, it's time to extricate those.