For the second year in a row, Victoria has come out on top as the best place to be a woman in Canada.
The results are from a new study released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).
It provides an annual snapshot of the gaps in men and women’s access to economic security, personal security, education, health, and positions of leadership in Canada’s largest 25 metropolitan areas.
- The gap in men’s and women’s levels of employment is the smallest in Victoria, out of the 25 cities measured, but this is largely the result of a lower than average employment rate among men.
- A smaller than average gap between men’s and women’s wages in Victoria is due in large part to men’s wages coming in below the national average.
- Women earn 73% of what men earn overall, though the wage gap widens for full-time workers, with women earning 71% of what men earn working full time.
- Rates of poverty are higher than average in Victoria, with 17.5% of men and 14.9% of women living below the Low Income Measure. Victoria is one of only a few cities where men’s poverty rates exceed those of women.
- Women in Victoria are more likely than men to have completed high school, college or university. The share of women who hold university degrees (26%) is above the national average and slightly higher than men in Victoria (25%).
- Men are nearly twice as likely as women to have completed trades training and apprenticeships (13% compared with 7%).
- Life expectancy in Victoria is slightly above the national average and, as is typically the case, women live slightly longer lives (84 years on average to men’s 80).
- Women in Victoria are slightly more likely than men to report high levels of stress in their lives (20% compared with 18%).
- The biggest factor in Victoria’s standing is the level of representation of women in politics. The study noted that Victoria has a female mayor and is the only city in the study to have more women than men on its council.
Image via Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
- Women in Canada are more likely to be victims of violent crime than men, due to persistently high rates of sexual assault. The study estimates that there were 6,947 incidents of sexual assault and 12,314 incidents of intimate partner violence over the past five years in Victoria.
