Question Period Note: Gender Equality in Non-Traditional Fields

How is the Government of Canada working to advance women and gender equality in skilled trades and other non-traditional fields?

*The Government is committed to advancing women and gender equality in non-traditional fields like the skilled trades. This will help close the gender wage gap.

*While key initiatives have helped make progress, barriers to economic potential remain. Women are over-represented in low-paying part-time occupations and underrepresented in full-time high-paying ones.

*The Government of Canada introduced several initiatives to advance women and gender equality in non-traditional fields, including: the Pre-Apprenticeship Program, an Apprenticeship Incentive Grant and the Women in Construction Fund.

Despite significant increases in women's levels of education and labour market participation, the gender wage gap remains since other barriers prevent women from reaching their full economic potential. This includes gender biases on types of work individuals are expected to perform.
o Women represented a majority in only 4 of 24 major trade groups in 2016, all of which are lower paying: early childhood educators and assistants (94%); community and social service workers (90%); hairstylists and estheticians (89%); and user support technicians (53%).

There is urgency to increasing women’s participation in the trades.
o BuildForce Canada anticipates a 4% labour shortage in construction with 24% of the workforce retiring over the next decade – or more than 300,000 jobs.
o Transitioning to a green economy may exacerbate existing gender inequities. Most future green job creation in Canada will be in occupations in which women are severely underrepresented, namely engineering and the skilled trades, in particular, manufacturing, construction and transportation.
o As new forms of work emerge, older ones will disappear due to automation, which will take lower-skilled work away from many people. This includes lower-paying administrative-support roles, which are largely filled by women.

The Government of Canada introduced several initiatives to advance women and gender equality in non-traditional fields, including:
o The Pre-Apprenticeship Program to help Canadians in underrepresented groups explore the trades, gain work experience, develop skills, and find jobs in the trades.
o An Apprenticeship Incentive Grant for Women in male-dominated Red Seal trades to support their training.
o The Women in Construction Fund to provide coaching and tailored supports from training to finding and retaining jobs in the trades.

Since November 2015, the Department for Women and Gender Equality, through its Women's Program, has approved some $9.5M in support of projects to advance women's participation in non-traditional fields where they are underrepresented. For example:
o Alberta-based Women Building Futures is leading a project to improve the economic prosperity of Indigenous women by supporting their hiring and retention in non-traditional occupations in the construction, maintenance, and oil and gas sectors.

As part of its efforts to advance gender equality in the economy, the Government recognizes that data collection must be improved to better understand the labour participation of LGBTQ2 people in Canada and to identify any wage gaps.

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