One in four Canadian women face gender-based discrimination: poll

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While eight in ten Canadian women believe it’s “easier” for women today than for women of past generations, more than one quarter (27 per cent) regularly experience gender-based discrimination, finds a new poll marking International Women’s Day.

Canadian mothers are also significantly less likely than Canadian fathers to say that boys and girls are treated equally or have the same opportunities at school, according to the National Post-Leger poll.

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“The major takeaway for me was, despite the progress that we’ve made, there’s still a lot more to go and we need to keep on fighting,” said Leger senior vice-president Jennifer McLeod Macey.

According to Statistics Canada, the proportion of women in Canada aged 25 to 65 with a post-secondary certificate, diploma or degree has increased significantly since the mid-1990s, from less than half (47 per cent) of women in 1996, to 70 per cent in 2021, a level of “educational attainment” that increased faster for women than men over the same period.

However, while the gender pay gap has narrowed, it persists: Women earned, on average, 88 cents for every dollar earned by men in 2024, compared with 81 cents in 1997, StatCan reports.

While women accounted for almost half of ministers appointed to the federal cabinet in 2023, women remain under-represented among MPs, the agency said in a brief paper marking International Women’s Day.

The Canada/U.S. Leger poll found that equal proportions of Canadian men and women (80 per cent) believe it’s “easier” for women today than in the past, though the pollsters didn’t specify or define “easier.”

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However, just 64 per cent of men agreed “there’s still a lot of work to be done when it comes to gender equity,” versus 82 per cent of women.

“I was thinking just on my way into the office this morning about an experience I had earlier this week,” McLeod Macey said. “I don’t think in the moment I realized the power divide between me and a conversation that I was having with a man, and the way he was larger, in the way his stance was over me in a professional setting, the way we were talking.

“It could be that we don’t always recognize where there might be some discrimination or some differences until hindsight, or if we think about it later on.”

The survey sampled 1,548 Canadian and 1,002 American adults 18 and older between Feb. 28 and March 2, inclusive, in the lead up to International Women’s Day on Saturday.

The poll found that Canadian men and women are roughly equally likely to agree that “recent policy shifts in our country” have improved their lives (25 per cent of women versus 22 per cent of men), though the survey didn’t define which policy shifts. In the U.S., “we see more of a stark divide between the men and the women,” McLeod Macey said. Roughly a third of American males agreed that policy shifts have enriched their lives, versus 20 per cent of U.S. women. “Frankly, it’s women where progress needs to be made,” McLeod Macey said.

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While the Leger survey “was in no way a political poll,” she said, nearly one in two Canadian women (48 per cent) agreed with the sentiment that the rise of right-leaning governments are threatening the rights of women in their communities. A “sizeable proportion” of Canadian men (39 per cent) also felt that way, McLeod Macey said. However, 40 per cent of Canadians disagreed with that sentiment and another 16 per cent said they don’t know.

There was a greater gender divide in the U.S. “where they are living it much more than we are here in Canada,” she said. Fifty-one per cent of American women polled believe women’s rights are at risk from “the rise of the right” versus 33 per cent of American men.

Canadian men and women aren’t united in their views on gender based societal expectations, with 74 per cent of women agreeing that women and girls face more pressure to conform than boys and men, versus just 54 per cent of men who hold that opinion.

“Kids and adults are inundated with media from all angles about the way to act, the way to look,” McLeod Macey said. “That is still a thing today, despite so-called progress in equality.”

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Canadian men and women also have different takes on the division of household responsibilities. “Men are more likely to feel things are fairly split; women not so much,” reads the survey’s highlights note.

More than half (55 per cent) of men said caregiving responsibilities for kids, parents or others are evenly shared in their households, compared to 43 per cent of women. Even more men (67 per cent) said the “mental load” of managing a household and family tasks is evenly shared, compared to 43 per cent of women. Sixty-nine per cent of men said cleaning, laundry, cooking and other chores are evenly shared among the men and women in their households, versus just 49 per cent of women.

However, similar numbers of men (51 per cent) and women (59 per cent) agreed that they’ve experienced extreme stress or burnout “due to balancing all that is expected of me.”

“It could be that these experiences are even greater than the data are showing here, because women are maybe not recognizing it or labelling it that way, or not accepting it for what it is,” McLeod Macey said. The sense of burnout was highest (68 per cent) among the youngest adults, aged 18- to 34, who may be more likely to “label it and understand it that way than perhaps older generations,” she said.

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The poll also found that Canadian dads are more likely than moms (76 versus 63 per cent) to believe that boys and girls have the same opportunities at school. There was an even greater divide as to whether boys and girls are treated equally: Only 38 per cent of moms believed so, versus 63 per cent of fathers.

American dads (55 per cent) are also more likely than moms (31 per cent) to feel boys and girls are treated equally.

When it comes to health care, Canadian women are less likely than men (47 per cent versus 62 per cent) to feel confident that the system “is there for me.” Similar proportions of American men and women have confidence in U.S. health care.

Data from the online survey was weighted to make the sample representative of the general Canadian and American populations. For comparison purposes, a probability sample of 1,548 respondents yields a margin of error not greater than plus or minus 2.5 per cent, and a sample of 1,002 yields a margin of error no greater than 3.1 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

National Post

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