2.2 - Educational Attainment 1976-1985

FIGURE 1 shows the educational attainment of Canadian women from 1971 to 1985.

• As might be expected from past trends, enrollment statistics indicate that Canadian women are becoming better educated.
  
  
• However, the majority of Canadian women (currently 71%) have no more than a high school education and approximately one woman out of five has less than a Grade 9 education.
  
  
• About the same percentage of women and men have less than a Grade 9 education. Slightly fewer women than men have university degrees, although the gap has narrowed (i.e., in 1971, 3% of women and 6% of men had university degrees; in 1985, 8% of women and 12% of men had attained this education level).

TABLES 1 and 2 illustrate the educational attainment of women and men in various age groups or "cohorts" in 1981 and show the differences between women's current (1981) education level and their attainment in 1976. Note that:

• In each age cohort, the percentage of women with less than a Grade 9 education, used in this report as a definition of illiteracy, decreases (e.g., in 1981, 50% of women in the 65+ age group compared to 8% of women age 25-34, had less than a Grade 9 education).
  
  
• Each subsequent age cohort is more likely to have attended university (in 1981, 6% of women in the 65+ age group, 23% of those age 25-34 years old), and is more likely as well to have acquired other post-secondary education (in 1981, 17% of women 65+ years old as compared to 28% of women 25-34 years old).
  
  
• These figures are similar to the figures on the changing educational attainment and current levels of education of men. However in one important way, women's education among all age cohorts still differs from that of men: within each age cohort, about twice as many men as women have trade certificates and diplomas (see TABLE 2). This is a key indicator that the historical segregation of women into traditionally female occupations continues into the present.

FIGURE 1

Changes in Highest Educational Attainment of
Women and Men, age 15+ 1971 - 1985

Source: Statistics Canada, Women in Canada, 1985 and Statistics Canada, The Labor Force, Monthly Cat. # 71-001