When you add up education, pay, safety and other issues, a new ranking says, there’s no worse place in Canada to be a woman than Waterloo Region.
The region ranked 25th out of 25 areas studied by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives think tank in a report released this week.
In an analysis, researcher Kate McInturff suggested that the local high-tech sector could be one of the reasons behind the ranking.
Edmonton and Calgary also have spots at the bottom of the rankings – and both, McInturff said, also rely on male-dominated occupations.
Although Waterloo Region did not finish dead last in any of the five categories measured for the report, it finished near the bottom in most.
Specifically, Waterloo Region’s ranked 16th out of 25 in economic security, 24th in education, 17th in health, 16th in leadership, and 24th in security.
Other local findings of the study:
- Women working full-time in the region earn 69 per cent of what their male counterparts do – one of the larger wage gaps measured in the country.
- An above-average level of domestic violence is reported to police, with 293 incidents reported in 2013
- One-third of senior managers and less than one-third of city councillors in the region are female
- 25 per cent of women report high levels of stress, as compared to 18 per cent of men
Victoria was measured as the best Canadian city in which to be a woman, followed by Gatineau (Que.) and Quebec City.
