Top-earning women are paid less than their male counterparts and are more likely to be single and childless, according to a report published Monday from Statistics Canada.
The national statistical agency released the first-ever gender-based analysis of the country’s highest-earners (workers earning at least $270,900 per year, which puts them in the top 1% of income earners based on data from the 2016 census).
Working women in the top 1% had a median income of $362,300 in 2015, the report finds, compared with $393,200 for men.
Not only are top-earning women paid less on average, they only account for one fifth of the workers in the top 1%, the report notes.
These gaps exist despite the fact that top-earning women are better educated. For instance, 74.2% of top-earning women have at least a bachelor’s degree, according to the report, compared with 70.0% of men.
Additionally, top-earning women are more likely to be single than their male counterparts; 77.3% of women in the top 1% have a spouse or common law partner, compared with 88.4% of men.
“At the same time, working women in the top 1% were somewhat less likely than their male counterparts to have children in the household, and when they did, they had fewer of them,” the report says.
By occupation, high-earning women are almost twice as likely than men to work in the medical field. Health occupations accounted for 20.3% of women in the top 1%, compared with 11.4% of men. Business, finance, and administration also accounted for 22.6% of women and 15.3% of men in the top 1%.
High-earning men are more likely to work in management, the report finds, with these occupations accounting for 41.5% of men in the top 1%, compared with 31.0% of women.
“Gender gaps in income were wider for senior managers and those in business, finance and administration occupations, while they were narrower in health, where salaries are more influenced by government policies,” the report says.