WATCH: Despite how far women have come in the workplace, women still earn thirty-cents a dollar less than men in Ontario. Marianne Dimain has the details.
It was enough to get Oscar-winning actress Meryl Streep up on her feet at Sunday night’s Academy Awards, and now the acceptance speech by Best Supporting Actress winner Patricia Arquette has many other people applauding.
“It’s our time to have wage equality once and for all,” Arquette said at the end of her speech. “And equal rights for women in the United States of America.”
Gender wage inequality in Hollywood has been in the spotlight, especially after Sony Pictures was hacked and email revealed many leading ladies of film were earning much less than their male co-stars. In an interview earlier this month, former Sony executive Amy Pascal said that women should stop accepting less money.
“They have to walk away,” Pascal added. “People shouldn’t be so grateful for their jobs.”
But the issue of wage gaps in all sectors runs much deeper than women working harder to negotiate their salaries. Margaret Yap, a professor with the Ted Rogers School of Management, says employers should also be proactive about offering equal pay to their employees.
“If you think back to the first census that we had in the 1960s, the gap is really really huge. I think it was like 60-cents for every dollar men earned,” Yap said. “Today if you think about it, the rough average is 70-cents for every dollar men earn that women take home.”
Closing that existing 30 percent gap is a slow process according to Ontario’s Pay Equity Office. One that should be moving much faster.
“We’ve done marginally better but its certainly not closing at the rate that it should be,” said Commissioner Emanuela Heyninck.
According to the Pay Equity Office, women with higher levels of education benefit in terms of hourly wages, but there remains a gap. Amoung women with Graduate University degrees, they still earn about five dollars less an hour compared to men with similar education levels.
“Businesses need to understand that they’re not utilizing 50 per cent of the workforce and 50 per cent of the educated workforce. So they’re not taking advantage of what both men and women bring to the workplace,” Heyninck said.
Ontario MD CEO Sarah Hutchison is one of many female workers who know the gender wage gap exists. Even with high profile voices ringing alarm bells about equal rights, at the end of the day, there should be accountability.
“I think that we’re constantly in that challenge to make sure that we promote and enable women to have the same opportunities as men do,” Hutchison said.
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