Skip to main content

Occupational diversity in Canada's Parliament???

Another update to material that is presented in the women and politics text I'm currently revising. For some reason this was more than a pain to do than I thought it would be. The major problem is how parliamentarians report their previous occupations varies quite a bit from how Statistics Canada categorizes occupations in Canada. This required a fair amount of interpretation of where the MPs' self-description would fit in the statistical categories. The second problem is that the categories are  remarkably broad, for example the business, finance and administration occupations run a range from bank tellers and clerical administration to bank owners and finance capitalists. It is interesting to note that as a whole this category in Canada as a whole skews towards women's participation, possibly a testimony to the feminization of the FIRE industries, i.e., Finance, Insurance and Real Estate. What the chart does indicate is how MP's both male and female are drawn from professional occupations rather than non-professional occupations like retail sales. MPs' tend to be drawn from the legal, business, government service professions. This doesn't particularly match the occupational breakdown of Canadian society as a whole.

 A Comparison of Occupations and MPs’ Previous Occupations, January 2018
% of Canadian women employed in this occupation, 2017
% of women MPs employed in this occupation, occupation, 42nd Parliament
Occupation WOMEN

Management
6.7
12.9
Business, finance and administration
22.8
14.1
Natural sciences/engineering/mathematics
3.7
2.3
Professional Occupation in law, social, community and government services
3.7
21.1
Para professional occupation in legal social, community and education
4.7
12.9
Professional occupations in education services
5.6
12.9
Occupations in frontline public protection services
0.2
2.3
Professional Occupations in health (except nursing)
2.3
4.7
Nursing
3.5
4.7
Artistic/literary/journalist
3.4
7.0
Sales and service
28.6
1.1
Natural resources, agriculture and related production occupations
0.73
-
Trades, transport, and construction
2.0
-
Processing, manufacturing, and utilities
2.7
1.1

 % of Canadian men employed in this occupation, 2017
% of men MPs employed in this occupation, 42nd Parliament
Occupation MEN


Management
11.6
8.6
Business and finance
9.4
14.3
Natural sciences/engineering/mathematics
11.3
4.5
Professional Occupation in law and social community and government services
1.9
29.1
Para professional occupation in legal social, community and education
0.6
3.3
Professional occupations in education services
2.3
13.9
Occupations in frontline public protection services
0.92
6.6
Professional Occupations in health (except nursing)
1.4
1.2
Nursing
0.36
-
Artistic/literary/journalism
2.8
10.2
Sales and service
18.8
0.4
Natural resources, agriculture and related production occupations – inc. faming
3.1
8.2
Trades, transport, and construction
25.4
3.3
Processing, manufacturing, and utilities
6.5
0.4

 Sources: Statistics Canada (2017); Library of Parliament, Parliamentarians, https://lop.parl.ca/sites/ParlInfo/default/en_CA/People/parliamentarians http://www.parl.gc.ca,

<End table>

Statistics Canada. Table 282-0142 Labour Force Survey Estimates (LFS) by National Occupation Classification (NOC) and sex, annual. CANSIM. Accessed February 4, 2018 & Library of Parliament, Parliamentarians. https://lop.parl.ca/sites/ParlInfo/default/en_CA/People/parliamentarians. Accessed February 1, 2018


 Now having spent two days working on this, I'm not sure how important it is to include in the chapter and might go with a more generalized breakdown from Samara Canada, that interestingly points out how there has been a rise in self-identified "farmers" in the House of Commons.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is Low Voter Turnout Actually A Good Thing?

 [It's a provocative position. I hope my answer is a bit more nuanced. Thinking with a pen, so the views are my own and likely to change as I think about it a bit more.] The big talking point regarding yesterday's municipal election in London is the free fall debacle in voter turnout. Only 25.5% of eligible voters cast a ballot, a significant plunge from the 40% turnout in 2018 (the BRT election) and from the 2014 high of 43% (the get rid of Fontana and the Fontana 8 election).  This low turnout is seen as the reason for the rather surprising outcomes in some of the words, namely the defeat of three "incumbents."* Incumbents are considered safe bets because they have name recognition and represent the status quo for voters. Generally, the mass of voters in municipal election have little to guide their votes other than name recognition and a desire not to change things up. However, when that "mass" of voters decides not to show up, that generalized support fo...
Post a Comment
Read more

Women Mayors in Ontario

 Recently, I've been up-dating the information on women councillors in Ontario. The following table lists the women elected Mayors in the municipal elections held in October 2022. The list is organized in order of descending population of the municipality. It notes whether the Mayor is an incumbent or newly elected, while new position indicates that the Mayor is new to the position, but was an already incumbent member of council.  Of the 417 Ontario Councils which held elections, 101 are now led by women. (There maybe a few I've missed, as I have not included Reeves.) Mayor Incumbent or New Municipality Pop Acclaimed Bonnie Crombie incumbent Mississauga 717,961 Andrea Horwath new Hamilton 569,353 Marianne Meed Ward incumbent Burlington 186,948 Elizabeth Roy new position ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Women on Councils: Majorities and Lockouts

 In this blog myself and my fantastic research assistant, Leila Russell Brown (soon to be an MA student at Western University) break down the Association of Municipalities Ontario (AMO) numbers from the October 2022 Municipal Elections (check out  Ontario Municipal Elections (amo.on.ca) ). Overall, according to the AMO, more women put themselves forward as candidates in 2022, 1,939 or 31% of all candidates. This is compared to 1,808 or 27% in 2018. In total, 6,325 women and men ran in 2022. Women won or were acclaimed in 32.3% of the races, an increase from 29.4% in 2018 (AMO, 2022). This puts women on local councils at just above the 30% marker set by the UN as indicative of a critical mass , the point at which government becomes more responsive to women's needs and women are able to influence key decisions. As the AMO reports, the women who ran were slightly more successful than men in the 2022 elections. The success rate of women was 47.2% compared to 43.8% of men. In 2018,...
Post a Comment
Read more