Earnings levels for men and women in the same occupational categories differ dramatically.

Average Annual Earnings
of Full - Year* Workers in Canada - 1978
Occupation Average Earnings

female as
male female % male

Managerial 24,337 13,250 54.4%
Professional 21,865 13,484 61.7%
Clerical 14,403 9,592 66.6%
Sales 16,456 7,193 43.7%
Service 13,258 6,372 48.1%
Farming, etc. 10,435 --- ---
Processing and Machining 16,271 8,698 53.5%
Product Fabrication 15,728 8,179 52.0%
Construction 16,275 --- ---
Transport 15,575 10,424 66.9%
Total 17,038 9,874 58.0%

*This table includes all full-year workers, that is, those who worked 50-52 weeks. No distinction is made between full-time and part-time workers. Since a larger percentage of women than men work part-time, earnings differences are distorted.

Even in office occupations, where women predominate, women still earn less than their male counterparts.

The Labour Canada Women's Bureau did a longitudinal study of 1976 post secondary graduates to look at differentials between men and women with respect to employment status, type of employment, salaries and continuing education after two years.

At the end of the study period female graduates were earning less (85%) than their male counterparts.

(1) "A female teacher with a bachelor's degree had to have three to four years experience to reach the salary level of a male teacher with the same education and less than one year's experience." Women in clerical positions earned $3,000 less than men in similar jobs with equivalent qualifications.

Even in a traditionally female occupation - nursing - men earned $14,340 annually, to women's $12,830. When master's degrees were acquired, men's salaries increased by about 6,400, but women's only by 3,400.

Female graduates of both universities and colleges were found to be employed in a narrower range of occupations than their male classmates. Women were clustered in health, teaching and clerical jobs, men were not as concentrated and found in other spheres such as physical sciences and management.

It is clear that higher education for women is no guarantee of earning power equivalent to that of their male classmates.




*Table taken from Women in the Labour Force "Basic Facts" by the Women's Bureau, Ontario Ministry of Labor.

(1) Devereaux, M.S., Rechnitzer, Edith, Higher Education - Hired? p. 6


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