Show us the money!

A recent study sponsored by TD shows that wage equality for Canadian women is just around the corner, that is, in 30 years or so.

The study hails education as the “great equalizer” and stresses that if women these days are getting better and longer education than their predecessors, it’s partly because they either choose to postpone pregnancy, child-birth and child-rearing, or choose to have fewer children (or none at all).

This study also highlights that women in the workforce still tend to stick to traditionally “female” fields, such as education and services, and that women still shy away from traditionally “male” fields such as mathematics or science. The authors (thankfully) point out that these differences are attributable to cultural and environmental factors, a situation which, they claim, can and should be fixed.

Finally, the TD study shows that a major factor in the gender wage gap is due to the fact that women generally work fewer hours in order to perform the necessary housework and child-rearing tasks. Interestingly, the authors note that “when wives have an income of $100,000 or more, the division of paid labour and housework between partners [is] more likely to be split equally.”

Too bad men aren’t just interested in those powerful, emasculating, high-income women…