A New View of the Male/Female Pay Gap

Abstract

We construct a new time series on the Canadian female/male pay ratio. The new series is based on wage data rather than the earnings data that have been used in the past. Wages more closely correspond to the price of labour, while earnings combine information on the price of labour with information on decisions of how much to work. Our results reveal significant differences between the wage- and earnings-based series. Most importantly, the wage series reveals that women have continued to make progress over the last 15 years.