New Study Reveals Corporate Canada’s Gender Gap: MBA News

By QS Contributor Updated Jun 15, 2014

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Introduction
Catalyst Canada show country’s MBA graduates more likely to go non-corporate

New Study Reveals Corporate Canada’s Gender Gap: MBA News main image

Corporate Canada should sit up and take notice of its gender gap if it wants to remain globally competitive. That’s the stance taken by Catalyst Canada as they released the latest results of their research into the careers of MBA graduates from leading business schools across the world.

The report, entitled ‘High-Potential Employees in the Pipeline: Maximizing the Talent Pool in Canadian Organizations’ – part of Catalyst’s drive to improve conditions for women – discovered that female MBA graduates (termed as ‘high potential employees’) earned an average of approximately US$7,650 less than their male counterparts a year in their first MBA job.

This is substantially larger than the average US$4,300 gender gap in pay found thus far by the international non-profit organization, Catalyst, across the US, Canada, Europe and Asia.

Catalyst Canada’s data came from a total of 1,574 MBA graduates working in Canada, and classified as Canadian, surveyed in 2007, 2010, 2011 or 2013. It has not tried to explain the gender gap, suggesting that the results speak for themselves.

The results also show that 72% of its female respondents took entry-level positions in Corporate Canada right after graduating, whereas this was true of just 58% of male grads. Additionally, women were found much less likely to be granted the opportunity to gain international experience and consequently reported a substantially lower knowledge of global product and labor markets.

Catalyst Canada show country’s MBA graduates more likely to go non-corporate

Catalyst Canada’s study also flags up a concerning stat for corporate Canada’s leadership pipeline, showing that the country’s MBA graduates were twice as likely to head into the public or non-profit sector as their counterparts elsewhere in the world – with this preference growing over the time since an employee graduated.

And indeed, within Canada, eschewing the corporate path was twice as common among female MBAs as it was among men.

“Corporate Canada is losing high-potential women to non-corporate sectors at much higher rates than other regions in the world. Canadian businesses and the Canadian economy need to tap the full talent pool for smart talented people to strengthen our country’s economic future and to stay competitive”, said Catalyst Canada’s executive director, Alex Johnston.

In the Toronto Star, Johnston noted some advantages held by the public sector in a Canadian context, where jobs have been said to give a greater sense of fulfillment as well as offering strong benefits, pensions and, until recently, job security.

Read an analysis of the top-rated business schools in Canada >