Vancouver ranked 13th best city for women in Canada

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      Where are the best and worst places to live in Canada, if you're a woman? According to a new Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives study, the best is Québec City and the worst is Edmonton.

      Vancouver ranks 13th on the list of Canada's 20 largest cities. Victoria placed fifth, and Toronto ranked sixth.

      Fun fact: Women in Vancouver have the longest life expectancy, compared to their counterparts in other Canadian cities.

      From the report, titled The Best and Worst Place to be a Woman in Canada, here's a few reasons for Vancouver's low ranking:

      • "Vancouver has one of the biggest wage gaps of the top twenty cities — with women earning 30% less than their male peers."
      • "Vancouver has higher than average rates of poverty overall, and women’s poverty rates are slightly higher than those of men, with 13% of men and 15% of women living below the Low Income Measure."
      • "Women in Vancouver have lower than average levels of full-time work, with 42% of working women holding full-time jobs."
      • "Nearly 7000 incidents of sexual and domestic violence were reported in the space of year in Vancouver."
      • "Vancouver falls in the middle of the pack in the area of women’s representation in leadership roles."
      • "The majority of men (68%) perceive their health as good or excellent, but only half (51%) of women do the same."
      • "Women are also more likely to identify high levels of stress in their lives, with 27% of women doing so compared to 21% of men."

      Comments

      6 Comments

      Twenty?

      Apr 23, 2014 at 6:52pm

      Canada has over 160 cities but only twenty on this list. These facts be wrong like me english.

      Fail and btw foreign investment is why the wage gap is so huge not because the local men outwork women. I know of 1 person in my group that makes over 80,000 a year EVERYBODY else makes 35,000.

      Forest

      Apr 23, 2014 at 7:11pm

      I'm not at all surprised.

      @Twenty?

      Apr 23, 2014 at 10:24pm

      I'm not sure you actually understand what a wage gap is. With the article stating that women earn 30% less than men, this is essentially like saying that for every $1 a man makes, a woman makes 70 cents; hence, men are making substantially more money than women in Vancouver.

      And again, it's not saying that men "outwork" women. This is taking into consideration all employed men and all employed women, and comparing the wages that they earn. Both unemployed men and women would not be included in this calculation for the wage gap.

      These twenty cities were probably chosen because they comprise the majority of Canada's population; obviously not all of it, but enough of a sample size to collect sufficient data.

      I'm not really sure how foreign investment is involved in this, since the wage gap has been pretty constant for almost 30 years.

      Also, the friend of yours who makes 80K... Man or Woman? I think I already know the answer.

      Douglas Bjorkman

      Apr 23, 2014 at 11:57pm

      I think it is outrageous that there continues to be this absurd disparity in earnings between women and men. No matter how many allowances are made for childbearing et cetra the fact is women are still being shafted.

      However I cannot fathom how some commentators seem to think there is some significance in the fact 20 cities were chosen to represent the urban population. One suggests there are 160 cities in Canada. In fact the 20th largest "city" is Burnaby. I would scarcely call it a City but maybe I'm just a snob. It does have close on a quarter of a million people as residents. The criteria for inclusion were clearly not size as Victoria is not in the top 50 having considerably less than 100,000. But if we go as deep as 100 the size of the towns is less than 50,000. They call it the City of North Vancouver but really. It's a suburb. And a very nice one I might add. I lived and worked there quite happily.

      I still remember when one of our sports teams was playing a New York team for the North American Championship and the NY sports commentator referred to the Village of Vancouver. Now that was something to get annoyed about. But to claim that Canada has more than lot more than twenty Cities is a indication of misplaced chauvinism. Indeed twenty is probably pushing it. (We won by the way. By that I mean the Vancouver Whitecaps won. I personally had no part in it.)

      Jon

      Apr 24, 2014 at 12:11am

      I love Quebec City. You didn't need to say anything more about it.

      Graham

      Apr 24, 2014 at 6:26pm

      @Douglas Bjorkman

      While there may be some amount of true disparity, most of the 30% is likely just that women tend to take jobs that pay less than men. The trades are of above average pay and dominated by men. Many of the jobs where women are more prevalent are low paid (retail for example).

      There is nothing wrong with this. If women want to work jobs that pay less then that is their choice. As long as women (and men) have equal opportunities for access to all jobs and are paid at the same rate then any other disparities are irrelevant.

      Now, there is likely still a small ways to go to having full equality in opportunity. Anecdotally I'd say that pay (for the same job/ability/seniority) is roughly equal based on my experience.

      I'm sure that some people will disagree with me and I appreciate any thoughtful replies.