A new CCPA study, Narrowing the Gap: The difference public sector wages make, compares the wages of full-time public and private sector workers and finds significant gaps in the wages of women, aboriginal workers, and visible minority workers. Those gaps are bigger in the private sector in every instance:
- University educated aboriginal workers make 44% less than their non-aboriginal peers in the private sector. In the public sector, their wage gap shrinks to 14%.
- University educated women working in the private sector earn 27% less than men. Their wage gap in the public sector is 18%.
- University educated visible minority workers take home 20% less than their non-visible minority counterparts. In the public sector, their wage gap is 12%.
Salaries are higher in the public sector precisely for those groups of people who experience the greatest discrimination in the private sector—because the public sector goes further in correcting those discriminatory practices. The result is not higher wages but rather a more equitable system of pay.
Click here to learn more and download the study.
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