Men, women almost earning same income: StatsCan
Vancouver Sun - CanWest News Service
By Shannon Proudfoot
April 24, 2009

The "breadwinner-homemaker model" for Canadian families is a thing of the past, and in some cases, it's even being turned on its head.

A report from Statistics Canada shows that between 1997 and 2008, the proportion of wives earning at least 45 per cent of their family's total income grew to 42 per cent from 37 per cent. That increase was driven in large part, by more women being their families' primary earners.

"Today, these roles are often shared or even reversed, with the indication that there are more women who are the primary breadwinners in their households," says Katherine Marshall, the senior analyst who authored the report.

Women's earnings are also increasing faster than men's. In 1997, $640 or 39 per cent of family earnings each week came from women, but by 2008, they were contributing $740 or 41 per cent of the total each week.

Together, dual-earner couples with full-time jobs earned $1,770 per week before taxes on average in 2008, up 10 per cent from 1997.

During that same time period, the combined hours worked by couples remained unchanged at 77 hours on average, but women were working an increased proportion of that. In 1997, husbands worked more than nine hours more than their wives each week (43.3 hours compared to 33.8), but by last year, that gap had fallen to just over seven hours (42 hours compared to 34.7).

Overall, 65 per cent of women were considered equal to their husbands in terms of weekly paid hours, up from 60 per cent in 1997. Spouses' earnings and hours are considered "approximately equal" if each contributed between 45 per cent and 55 per cent of the total, the agency says.

"Even within a 12-year period, the gender wage-gap is continuing to narrow, so the combination of longer hours in the workforce for women and higher earning-power is allowing them to contribute significantly more to the total family earnings," Marshall says.

On an hourly basis, wives earn 81 per cent as much as their husbands, the report finds, bringing in $21.10 an hour compared to $26.20 per hour, on average. But that gap has also narrowed since 1997, when wives earned 77 per cent what their husbands did.

"The data indicates it's not all the way there, but I think the trend is clearly evident here and it suggests where we'll end up," says Clarence Lochhead, executive director of the Vanier Institute of the Family.

Women — particularly young women — are much more highly educated than in the past, he says, and the cultural expectation now is that they will have careers by choice.

…. Shea says she takes the lead on the before- and after-school care of their children, aged 10 and six, because of her husband's extra hours at work. Juggling work and family responsibilities with both partners working full time is tough, she says, but both incomes have an equal impact on their family….

The Statistics Canada report demonstrates how difficult it can be to balance two full-time careers and a family. One in four men and one in three women in full-time dual-income households with young children report feeling severely time-stressed, which is in turn related to lower satisfaction with work-life balance.

The study used Labour Force Survey data to look at hours and earnings in dual-income couples, both common-law and married, and General Social Survey data to look at perceptions of work-life balance.