A recent report is shedding light on the importance of International Women’s Day, considering how far women have to go to find equality in Canada and around the world.

With global economic unrest, the inequality crisis has reached new extremes, according to Oxfam Canada.

Last year, the 62 richest people on the planet had the same wealth as the poorest half of the world population, the bottom 3.6 billion people.

The richest one per cent now have more wealth than the rest of the world combined. In Canada, the top one per cent of the population owns a quarter of the country’s wealth.

And in another unequal extreme, 53 of the wealthiest 62 billionaires in the world are men.

Women are still up against a major struggle when it comes to financial equality.

Women and men tend to work in different occupations, and women tend to work at lesser paying ones, according to the report.

In Canada, 97 per cent of truck drivers are men, and they make a median annual wage of $45,417 working full time. The same percentage of early childhood educators are women, and they make a median annual wage of $25,334.

But women can’t escape this by simply choosing different careers, as wage gaps occur across all sectors and education levels, according to the data.

Women working full time all year in Canada earn 72 per cent of what men earn.

The wage gap is even greater for aboriginal women, women of racial minority groups, and women who have immigrated to Canada.

Women also make up most of the low-wage and minimum wage jobs. Numerous low-paying jobs offer unsafe work environments, leading to injuries and even deaths.

In Canada, and around the world, many women work for wages that don’t cover their basic cost of living, and many have to care for family members who are sick or for another reason reliant.

It’s been proven that effective regulation and wage-setting, makes women better off and decreases the wage gap.

For example, in Canada’s regulated public sector, university-educated women see their wage gap shrink from 27 per cent to 18 per cent. University-educated Aboriginal workers see their wage gap shrink from 44 per cent to 14 per cent, and university educated racial minority employees see their wage gap fall from 20 per cent to 12 per cent.

Oxfam and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives are calling for action to create a more level playing field in the workforce for men and women.  

They suggest that Canada ensure that tax policies recognize unequal gender roles and work to change them. They want to see the government finance more public services to reduce women’s unpaid care work and expand their job opportunities.

They want more protection for workers by ensuring access to decent and safe employment opportunities and non-discriminatory workplaces.

Lastly, they say more of a focus needs to be on promoting women’s rights and leadership to overcome women’s economic inequality once and for all.