It’s improved slightly, but B.C. continues to have one of the largest gender pay gaps in Canada.
The provincial government’s second annual report on Pay Transparency, released Friday, shows a gender pay gap of 15 per cent in B.C. last year, down slightly from 2023, when women in the province earned 16 per cent less than men, based on median hourly wages.
That means women earned 85 cents for every dollar men earned in 2024, Finance Minister Brenda Bailey said in the report, adding: “While this shows progress, B.C. still has one of the highest gender pay gaps in Canada.”
The national gender pay gap was 12 per cent in 2024 and 14 per cent in 2023.
Alberta topped the list of provinces with the biggest gender pay gaps last year at 22 per cent, followed by Saskatchewan at 18 per cent and Newfoundland and Labrador at 17 per cent.
A law passed in May 2023 requires all B.C. employers to include salary and wage information on all public job postings.
For existing staff, only large employers — with 1,000 or more employees — were required to prepare pay-transparency reports last year, which 80 per cent did. Medium-sized employers of 300 and more are required to comply as of Nov. 1, and small employers of 50 staff or more by next year.
Stacey Fitzsimmons, assistant professor at the Peter B. Gustavson School of Business at the University of Victoria, said it’s easy to assume pay gaps are a thing of the past, but the data show that’s not the case.
“B.C. falling behind the national average on the gender pay gap is disappointing, and a reminder that good intentions aren’t the same as real progress,” said Fitzsimmons.
B.C.’s Pay Transparency Act encourages employers to find out why gender gaps exist and fix them, said Bailey, something that’s especially important in uncertain economic times.
The biggest improvements in B.C.’s gender pay gap since 2023 were noted in three sectors — agriculture, forestry, and fishing and hunting, where the gap dropped to 36 per cent gap from 45 per cent, according to the report.
There was also a drop to 17 per cent from 24 per cent for the pay gap in mining, quarrying and oil-and-gas extraction, and a drop to 11 per cent from 18 per cent in wholesale trade.
In addition, the gender pay gap shrank for young women with post-secondary trade certificates and diplomas, to eight per cent last year from 21 per cent in 2017.
Fitzsimmons said without transparency, there’s no accountability, which is why both pay-gap reporting and pay ranges in job ads are becoming more common.
“Research on their effects show that public data pushes companies to improve, and clear pay ranges let job seekers know what’s fair — and what’s not,” she said.
Also, while the gender pay gap gets most of the attention, said Fitzsimmons, the gaps are even wider for racialized and Indigenous men and women.
“We can’t talk about pay equity without talking about all the factors that drive it,” she said.
The Pay Transparency report shows the gender pay gap for non-racialized women was the smallest at 10 per cent, followed by newcomer women at 15 per cent, women with disabilities at 18 per cent and Indigenous and racialized women each at 19 per cent. Older women also saw a bigger wage gap compared with men.
The median income for transgender women was up to 61 per cent lower than for cisgender men, meaning trans-gender women made 52 per cent of every $1 a man made.
Bailey said the problem can be worse for those who are also Indigenous, racialized, newcomers, LGBTQ or have disabilities.
Fitzsimmons says there also needs to be more talk about the pay gap between part-time work and full-time.
The report shows in 2024, women continued to be twice as likely as men to work part time.
While part-time work offers flexibility for caregiving and other life priorities, it also pays less per hour and limits career progression, said Fitzsimmons.
Part-time work paid a median of $21 per hour compared to $33.78 per hour for full-time work, a key factor that contributed to the gender pay gap, the report said.
“When women are twice as likely to work part-time than men, we have to ask: Is it a real choice, or an expectation?” Fitzsimmons said.
