‘Without stronger laws, too many Albertans will continue to be undervalued and underpaid’
Alberta is the only province without pay equity or pay transparency measures, and it’s time to change that, according to one labour group.
Currently, the province has the largest gender pay gap in the country, and that gap is “not an accident,” noted the Alberta Federation of Labour, attributing most of the disparity to systemic wage discrimination.
“In Alberta, the gender pay gap is not an accident and it is not simply a matter of career choice,” the AFL states. “The gender pay gap is mostly the result of wage discrimination. It reflects how our labour market systematically undervalues work traditionally done by women.”
The brief says the average gender wage gap for core‑age workers across Canada was 13% in 2024, while Alberta’s gap was 18% in 2024 and 17.4% in 2025, the group stated, citing data from Statistic Canada (StatCan). If the gap were eliminated, women in Alberta would earn about $7 more per hour on average, the AFL says.
Pay equity and transparency
Seven of ten provinces have adopted pay equity legislation requiring equal pay for work of equal value, while five have enacted pay transparency laws obliging employers to disclose certain compensation details, such as salary ranges in job postings. Four provinces have both.
Saskatchewan and British Columbia do not have pay equity statutes but have policy frameworks for negotiating public sector pay equity; British Columbia also has a pay transparency law. Alberta, the AFL notes, “is the only province that has not adopted pay equity legislation, pay transparency legislation, or a pay equity negotiation framework.”
At the federal level, the Pay Equity Act, in force since 2021, requires federally regulated public and private sector employers to proactively achieve pay equity. The AFL warns that in Alberta, many workers fall outside the federal regime and are not covered by union‑negotiated provisions, leaving “many Alberta workers … unprotected from wage discrimination.”
Progress on pay equity is real, but slow and profoundly uneven. That was the message from the Ontario Pay Equity Office, which reports that, on an hourly basis, women in Ontario earned 88 cents for every dollar earned by men in 2025, leaving a 12% wage gap — a slight improvement from 82 cents nearly three decades ago.
‘Equal work’
The AFL report says Alberta’s current legal framework addresses only part of the problem. The Alberta Human Rights Act guarantees equal pay for the “same or substantially similar” work, in line with other provinces’ human rights legislation.
“Put simply, Alberta law says two people doing the same or very similar job must be paid the same,” the AFL states. “What it does not address is whether two different jobs that require comparable skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions are paid fairly relative to each other.”
The group argues that while Alberta protects equal pay for equal work, it does not require equal pay for work of equal value, and employers are not required to audit their compensation systems.
“Pay equity laws are meant to re‑evaluate the worth of women‑dominated jobs and to ensure they are not paid less simply because women do them,” the brief says, adding that pay transparency is “disclosure and reporting” rather than structural adjustment.
Women‑dominated jobs underpaid
The report also highlights women‑dominated occupations in health care, education and community services as being systemically undervalued.
“Care aides, educational assistants, early childhood educators, clerical staff, health care support workers, and social services workers carry enormous responsibility, skill, and emotional labour,” the AFL notes. “Yet these women-dominated occupations are routinely paid less than men-dominated roles requiring comparable training, accountability, and working conditions.”
According to the brief, unions “see this every day at the bargaining table,” and caregiving and service work have historically been treated as extensions of unpaid women’s labour. By contrast, construction, utilities, energy and trades—sectors dominated by men—are “structured and compensated very differently.”
National research cited by the AFL finds that nearly two‑thirds of the gender pay gap cannot be explained by education, experience, job attributes, occupation or industry, a pattern consistent with studies from the United States and United Kingdom. “The biggest factor causing the gender wage gap is discrimination,” the report concludes. “Women’s work is consistently undervalued and underpaid.”
The brief says the gender pay gap is wider for some groups of women. In 2022, the national average gap for core‑age women who immigrated to Canada as adults was 21%, and 20% for Indigenous women. Senior women earned 26% less than senior men, and women executives across Canada earned 56% less than male executives in 2021.
The AFL also links Alberta’s frozen minimum wage to the gender gap. The province’s minimum wage has been $15 an hour for more than seven years and is now the lowest in Canada; about 60% of minimum‑wage earners in Alberta are women. Increasing the minimum wage would help reduce the gender wage gap and “stimulate local economies by increasing the consumer spending power of over 100,000 workers,” the report says.
Previously, the AFL called for a $20 per hour minimum wage in the province, citing rising living costs and stagnant wages as key concerns for working Albertans. Alberta’s wages are falling behind the rest of Canada, despite the province having the highest gross domestic product per worker, the Centre for Future Work previously noted.
“Economic inequality is not just a fairness issue. It holds back economic growth,” the AFL adds, citing research that advancing gender equality in Canada could expand the national economy by $150 billion between 2016 and 2026, including a 5 to 6 per cent boost to Alberta’s economy.
The AFL notes that the Government of Alberta’s “women’s economic security” webpage acknowledges that women “earn less on average than Alberta men for the same or substantially similar work,” but says the province has “chosen not to adopt” legislative or policy tools used elsewhere.
“Everyone deserves to be paid fairly for their skills, effort, and experience,” the federation concludes. “Without stronger laws, too many Albertans will continue to be undervalued and underpaid, and Alberta’s economy and communities will continue to pay the price.”
