City of Vancouver Employees
How do women fare?
Vancouver wage gap
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by Eleanor Ren and Janet Hilts
for LIBR 514F: Information visualization and visual analytics @ UBC
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The BC Human Rights Code prohibits discrimination in hiring requiring equal pay regardless of gender identity and expression (Government of British Columbia, 1996). Equal pay for the same kind of work does not mean equality in work, however. An existing unbalanced hiring pattern exists with women in a disadvantageous position: the gender wage gap.
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The Canadian gender wage gap is the 5th largest among OECD countries (OECD, 2018). Women in B.C., according to The Canadian Union for Public Employees (2014), are faring the worst among all Canadian provinces. Not only has their pay gap narrowed at the slowest pace, with no improvement over the past decade—but their wages have also increased at the slowest rate of all provinces.
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Six years later, what is the status of the gender wage gap? To find out, we analysed data from the City of Vancouver Open Data Portal, looking for patterns in women’s pay rates in the current Vancouver municipal government’s workforce.
Where are the women employees?
Vancouver is known as a progressive city; however, the City of Vancouver’s attempts to implement “equal work” has not produced the results many had hoped. Among all the City jobs, only 35% of the employees are women. Women are also largely distributed in classification groups dominated by jobs “traditionally held by women,” such as administration, instruction, and service and support roles. In contrast, no or only a few women work in male-dominated positions such as electricians, machinists, firefighters, fire investigators, and so on.
How serious is the gender wage gap?
Sticky floor: women overrepresented in lower-paying positions
More than half of all women employed at the City of Vancouver fall within the lowest pay grade, able to earn less than $35 per hour (compared to 42% of men) (City of Vancouver, 2020). Nearly three-quarters of all women employees are not making over $45 per hour (compared to 66% of men) (City of Vancouver, 2020). Overall, men are much more evenly distributed across the pay grades than are women.
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“Research suggests that women are not opting out of promotions or positions that are higher paying, but rather women are hired at lower starting salaries and experience promotions less frequently than men (this is called a “sticky floor” to go with the “glass ceiling”)” (McInturff & Tulloch, 2014).
Glass ceiling: higher pay brackets include women, but few earn top dollars
Although women are finding their way up to the higher pay brackets, with 6% of women able to earn the hefty hourly wage of 75$ or more, just over a quarter of the top earners at the City of Vancouver are women (City of Vancouver, 2020).
NOTE: Our data and analysis include just the maximum pay per hour that each employee can earn given their job’s pay grade. If we could factor in overtime and other one-time benefits, such as unused vacation time, the pay gap would be much larger (Culbert & Griffiths, 2020).
What about unionized jobs?
94% of City of Vancouver jobs are unionized
Senior researchers Kate McInturff and Paul Tulloch at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives found the gender pay gap is less severe in the public sector than the private sector. They say a significant reason is unions (McInturff & Tulloch, 2014).
In comparison to non-unionized positions, then, have unionized jobs offered more pay equity to women working for the City of Vancouver? Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem so.
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On average, women doing unionized work are in positions where they can earn $36 per hour maximum, while for men, this figure is $40 per hour (90 cents to a man’s dollar)(City of Vancouver, 2020).
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For non-unionized positions (union exempt), these figures are $70 per hour for women and $75 per hour for men (93 cents to a man’s dollar).
What’s more, the unequal representation of genders in well-paying, unionized positions is across the board. Each of the five unions representing City of Vancouver workers has fewer women members in higher-paying jobs than men (City of Vancouver, 2020).
Unions representing City of Vancouver workers
Vancouver Firefighter Union - VFU - IAFF (local 18)
International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees - IATSE (local 891)
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers - IBEW (local 258)
Canadian Union for Public Employees - CUPE (locals 15 and 1004)
References
Canadian Union of Public Employees. (2014). Women still face pay gaps nationwide. Canadian Union of Public Employees. https://cupe.ca/women-still-face-pay-gaps-nationwide.
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City of Vancouver. (2020). Workforce pay rates and gender. City of Vancouver Open Data Portal. [Data set]. https://opendata.vancouver.ca/explore/dataset/workforce-pay-rates-and-gender/table/?sort=classification
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Culbert, L., & Griffiths, N. (2020). Public sector salaries: Where are the women? In B.C., not many are near the top of the pay scale. Vancouver Sun.
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Government of British Columbia. (1996). Human Rights Code. BC laws. http://www.bclaws.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/00_96210_01.
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McInturff, K., & Tulloch, P. (2014). Narrowing the Gap: The difference that public sector wages make. Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. https://www-deslibris-ca.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/ID/244703
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Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development OECD. (2018). Gender wage gap [Data repository]. OECD Data. https://data.oecd.org/earnwage/gender-wage-gap.htm