In 2024, the symbolic date on which Quebec women begin to work “for free” until the end of the year is November 29, a slight increase compared to last year, according to calculations by the Research Institute and socio-economic information (IRIS).
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Women will obviously receive their paychecks on a regular basis by the end of the year. Saying that they work for free is a way of illustrating the wage gap between men and women that remains in Quebec.
In 2023, women earned an average of $30.86 per hour. This is equivalent to 91% of the hourly wage of their male counterparts, which stood at $33.84, according to the most recent data from the Institut de la tourisme du Québec.
IRIS uses hourly wages rather than annual wages to determine the symbolic date to prevent the overrepresentation of women in part-time jobs from influencing the data.
The pay gap between men and women is even wider based on annual salary, says the research institute. Quebec women earn an annual income that represents 78% of that of their male colleagues.
The wage gap stagnates
The date at which women start working “for free” has relatively stagnated in recent years. In 2023, it was set for November 25; in 2022 it was November 27, December 1 in 2021 – an anomaly caused by the pandemic, notes IRIS.
“For two decades, we have seen a slow evolution towards reducing the wage gap. We understand why there has been progress, but [la stagnation] in recent years is difficult to justify,” explains Anne Plourde, researcher at IRIS.
The adoption of the Pay Equity Act In 1996, the Quebec Parental Insurance Plan (QPIP) and the creation of the subsidized daycare network were among the policies that allowed Quebec to display a smaller wage gap compared to the rest of Canada.
In 2022, this stood at 13% in Ontario, compared to 9% in Quebec.
However, Anne Plourde still judges that we “could have gone further” to achieve equity and that the province even shows “certain setbacks, particularly on access to childcare.”
For her, the solution mainly involves creating new places in subsidized daycare.
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François Legault’s government has also promised to create 37,000 subsidized places by 2025. As of August 30, 25,000 places had been created. Some 34,000 children are still on the waiting list.
The threat of “alpha males”
The rise of the phenomenon of “alpha males”, which advocates a return of women to the home, could have a “regressive effect on the wage gap”, provided that the trend takes on a greater magnitude, believes Anne Plourde.
“One thing that explains the differences in pay between men and women is the fact that women are often primarily responsible for domestic work. They are therefore less available for career advancement and are less likely to find themselves in better-paid executive positions,” explains the researcher.
