Canada’s Gender Gap in Employment

By Raulin Cadet | Published July 24, 2025 | Updated July 24, 2025 | Topics: Canada, Gender, Employment, Job market

"There is no limit to what we, as women, can accomplish."
— Michelle Obama

In a previous post, I examined unemployment across Canada's provinces before and after the COVID-19 period, showing how Québec moved from a mid-ranking province to the one with the lowest average unemployment rate. A follow-up post explored which regions within Québec contributed most to that shift. Still curious about the structure of the Canadian labor market, I now turn to another key question: Is there a gender gap in Canadian employment?

This post looks at 2024 employment data by gender and sector. The graphic of this post reveals a clear pattern: men hold the majority of jobs in most sectors. The first sector is Construction, where 86.4% of those employed are men. In fact, there are five sectors where men make up more than 80% of the workforce, a reminder of how strongly some fields remain gendered.

On the other hand, only one sector is majority female to that degree: Health care and social assistance, where women represent 80.4% of those employed. The second most female-majority field is Educational services, with 68.3% women.

There is a real gender gap across Canadian employment. Is it the result of individual career preferences shaped by culture? Or does it reflect a lack of strong, targeted public policies to help shift the balance across sectors?