Moms Making Strides In The Workforce

As we begin to take a look at the year that was, one of the topics that remained prevalent throughout the year is Canada’s bouncing back from the recession. Although considered a leader in global recovery, Canada still has individuals who are without work and are finding it difficult to re-enter the workforce.

Nevertheless, there is evidence that shows that over the past few decades, the Canadian workforce has steadily expanded. Today, the QMI Agency revealed that a recent Statistics Canada report discovered that one particular group of people are working more today than ever before. According to the report, “the number of working moms has almost doubled over the past 30 years.”

Interestingly, the report also notes that women’s employment still lags behind men, overall. Some numbers coming from the study include 73% of women who had children under the age of 16 while living at home had jobs in 2009. Back in 1976, only 39.1% of women in this category were working.

As well, 80% of women without children were employed last year even though the national employment average is above 93%. One would hope, however, that over the years women would be able to break from their traditional occupational roles. Being a nurse, for example, is still a job closely associated with the female gender.

Statistics Canada has found that women are definitely finding ways to land jobs in generally male dominated fields such as business and finance although most are still concentrated in their traditional occupations. This suggests that gender prejudice still remains prevalent in the work world.

For example, in 2009, 67% of employed women worked in “teaching, nursing and related health occupations, clerical or other administrative positions, or sales and service occupations.” Meanwhile, “only 31% of employed men worked in these fields.” Perhaps, the argument can be made the gender discrimination for jobs goes both ways.

The StatsCan survey also found that “women made up 51.2% of business and financial professionals in 2009, up from 38.3% in 1987. The share of women employed has also gone up in diagnostic and treatment positions in medicine and related health professions.” It is expected, of course, that women will continue to make strides in a variety of professional positions in the decades to come.