A new report finds that women in the skilled trades earn about half what men do, because they're concentrated in lower-paying fields.
Those include occupations such as cooking, baking and hairstyling.
The report from the Labour Market Information Council says "Red Seal" tradespeople made $64,000 in their first years of work and their incomes grew on average 2.1 per cent annually over the eight-year study period to reach $73,800.
But female tradespeople made more than $31,000 less in their first years and that gap didn't close as the years passed.
The organization's executive director, Steven Tobin, says many Canadians are struggling to figure out what to do as they continue to face challenges in the labour market.
Tobin says the evidence emerging around labour shortages in the skilled trades raises the question of whether now is the time to encourage more people, especially women, to enter trades where earnings are higher.