One of NWPB’s 2020-2021 projects is to produce a gender-focused Labour Market Report. Given the current context, taking into account the gendered impacts of COVID-19 offers a deeper understanding of specific local impacts. It also offers context for those working towards gender equity and aligns with current priorities of Niagara’s Regional government.
In addition to a larger report, we will be publishing a series of posts outlining gender-focused labour market information. This post will focus on providing a baseline understanding of who is living and working in Niagara.
To gain insight on local employment, it is important to understand Niagara’s population. These data can be broken down by gender (note: Statistics Canada’s data reports gender between two variables: men and women. This limitation is beyond NWPB’s ability to control or correct).
Niagara has seen steady population growth, with the ratio of men and women remaining relatively stable over time.
Specific information on Niagara’s labour force is available every month from Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey. Definitions on key labour force characteristics can be found here.
On the surface, Niagara’s local labour force and employed individuals had fairly equal representations of men and women. However, when we dive deeper into these indicators, we see a higher percentage of men than women in full-time employment. In contrast, we see a higher percentage of women than men in part-time employment.
Here we see the top 5 occupations of employment for Niagara residents, and a provincial-level gender breakdown for those employed in these occupations. Census data provide 2015 income for men and women working full-time in these occupations.
Overall, these data indicate that locally, men and women are fairly equally represented in the local labour force. However, there are differences in the occupations where men and women typically report employment.
As an example, we tend to see more men reporting employment in trades, transport and equipment operators and related occupations than women. Further, men reported higher median income in this occupation than women.
We also tend to see more women reporting employment in health occupations and occupations in education, law and social, community and government services. However, income data from 2015 indicate that women reported lower income than men in these same general occupations.
A full infographic of the above data can be downloaded here for your convenience.
Would you like to know more? NWPB is ready for your questions. Please reach out to NWPB’s CEO, Vivian Kinnaird.
We are collecting data to better understand who is looking for work and what kind of opportunities jobseekers are searching for. This data is completely anonymous and non-personally identifiable.
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