Does Job Size Matter? Understanding the Gender Pay Gap from Entry Level to Executive

Beyond the Headlines

The gender pay gap remains one of the most scrutinized measures of workplace equity in Canada. In 2024, Statistics Canada reported that the ratio between female and male median wages is 90%¹ and that this gap widens at the executive level, where female executives earn roughly 40% less in total compensation relative to male executives.² These numbers make great fodder for headlines, but do they tell the whole story?

According to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, men in the private sector make almost 10% more per hour on average than women, while in the public sector the hourly gender pay gap is closer to 5%.³ These differences highlight how sectoral structures, transparency, and governance can influence pay outcomes, but they also underscore how much depends on what is being compared and how the comparison is made.

Pay is influenced by many factors, including the size and scope of a role, the complexity of its responsibilities, and its organizational impact. Without accounting for these differences, wage gap statistics risk comparing very different situations. Imagine comparing the CEO of a $50 billion-dollar company to a CEO of a $1 billion-dollar company, or a Manager overseeing 200 employees to one managing 20.

While public data shows a persistent gender pay gap in Canada, it’s often unclear how much of that gap reflects genuine differences in the size of the job versus inequities in pay for comparable jobs. At CGP, we analyzed our proprietary compensation database consisting of hundreds of Canadian organizations to answer a critical question:

When we look at the size of the job and not just the job’s title does a gender pay gap still exist?

Understanding Job Size, Job Match, and the Data

Before exploring the results, it is important to clarify how we measure job size and how this approach differs from the more common practice of job matching.

In most market compensation surveys, pay comparisons are made using job matches. Job matching aligns roles based on similar titles and high-level descriptions. For example, comparing a “CFO” in one organization to a “CFO” in another. While this method is useful for benchmarking, it often overlooks differences in organizational scale, scope, and accountability. A “CFO” of a $50 million organization, for instance, may lead a much smaller team, manage fewer functions, and face very different decision-making complexities than a “CFO” of a multi-billion-dollar organization in the same sector.

To remove that bias, our analysis uses our proprietary job evaluation system to assess job size, an objective measure of the relative value and complexity of a role within an organization. Job size is determined through a structured framework that evaluates factors such as decision-making authority, strategic influence, scope of problem-solving, financial impact, and leadership accountability. This approach quantifies the complexity of a job to a singular score, thereby creating a consistent scale that allows for better “apples-to-apples” comparisons of jobs across organizations, regardless of title or industry.

This distinction is critical. Job match tells us who holds a similar title; job size tells us which jobs’ responsibilities and accountabilities carry equivalent value.

Our findings are based on CGP's proprietary compensation database, which comprises 300+ Canadian organizations and includes both private sector and public sector companies. This database contains compensation information for 34,000 incumbents across all levels of an organization, from entry-level to C-suite positions.

Throughout this article, any reference to “total compensation” means total direct compensation at target, which includes base salary, short-term incentives⁴, and long-term incentives⁵. Such measures indicate a consistent view of the incentives the company aims to provide, rather than actual year-to-year payouts.

With that foundation established, we turn to what our analysis reveals about gender pay gaps in Canada once job size is factored in.

1. Job Size Explains Part, But Not All, of the Executive Gender Pay Gap   

The tables below outline the median gender compensation gap using a job match approach versus a job size approach. The job match approach compares ALL male CFOs and CHROs with their female counterparts⁶, while the job size approach ONLY compares male to female CFOs and CHROs where the roles have comparable scope, accountability, and complexity, as reflected in similar job evaluation scores.

The compensation gap using a job match approach is significant for CFOs but comparatively small for CHROs⁷. Once we control for job size by comparing roles of comparable scope, accountability, and complexity, the gap narrows. The job size analysis demonstrates that while the gender pay gap decreases when comparing like-sized roles, it does not disappear entirely. The remaining gap is most pronounced at the CFO level, while for CHROs the difference is comparatively small. We note that unlike other executive roles, the CHRO role is heavily female dominated, which may influence observed compensation patterns.

Key takeaway: The method used to compare compensation matters, but it does not fully explain observed differences in executive compensation between males and females. Residual gaps persist in some executive roles even after accounting for role comparability.

2. Gender Pay Gaps Widen With Seniority

We then expand our analysis beyond the executive level. We observe a clear trend when comparing male and female compensation across all job evaluation levels, from entry-level through to director and executive. The following chart shows the male to female median compensation gap using a job size approach, along with the percentage of women at different levels of seniority.

At lower levels, the gender pay gap is relatively modest and less than the 90-cent ratio cited by Statistics Canada. As job size and seniority increase, the gap widens significantly; this gap is in part driven by differences in target incentive compensation, as the base salary gap is narrower. In other words, pay equity tends to erode as individuals advance to more senior levels within an organization. This pattern aligns with what many organizations experience: women are relatively well represented in early-career and mid-level roles, but representation and equity declines at the top.

Key takeaway: The higher the job level, the larger the gender pay gap.

3. The Gender Pay Gap Is Narrower in the Broader Public Sector, But Not Eliminated

To explore if governance and ownership structures correlate with gender pay equity, we compare compensation data across the broader public and the private sectors. The tables below use a job size methodology to compare gender median pay gaps between the broader public sector and the private sector.

Consistent with national statistics from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, our analysis indicates that gender pay gaps at the C-Suite, Vice President, and Director levels are larger in the private sector than in the broader public sector, partially reflecting the influence of pay disclosure and perceived importance of equity measures within public institutions. However, this pattern reverses below the Director level, where gender pay gaps in the broader public sector are comparable to or greater than those in the private sector.

Key takeaway: Pay transparency and structured governance are effective in reducing gender pay gaps, but even the most regulated and transparent sectors are not immune to inequity.

4. Why the Residual Gap Persists

If job size, structure, and sector do not fully close the gender pay gap, what explains the remainder?

Our analysis, supported by client experience and research on compensation behaviour, points to several contributing factors:

• Representation: Women remain underrepresented in the largest and most complex roles. In 2024, Statistics Canada announced that women hold only 23% of all executive positions in Canada.⁸

  
  

  • Drawing upon CGP’s proprietary database, at the C-suite level, women represent 54% of executives in the broader public sector compared to only 16% in the private sector. This disparity not only limits the number of women in the highest-paying roles but also influences overall pay gap calculations, as the concentration of men in top private sector positions skews average compensation outcomes upward.

• Career continuity: Women are more likely to experience career interruptions related to caregiving responsibilities, which can affect advancement opportunities, bonus eligibility, and long-term earnings growth.

  
  

• Legacy systems: Historical pay structures and benchmarking practices can perpetuate inequities over time, particularly when not reviewed regularly.

  
  

Taken together, these factors indicate that while structural pay frameworks reduce inequities, the residual gender pay gap persists due to a combination of representation patterns, career dynamics, and compensation design features. Understanding these underlying drivers is critical to interpreting pay disparities and contextualizing where an organization’s attention may be needed.

5. What This Means for Leaders and Boards

For organizations committed to equity, fairness, and good governance, these findings offer several practical takeaways:

1. Conduct regular reviews of pay equity using consistent job evaluation frameworks to compare roles of equivalent size and scope.

   
   

2. Review short- and long-term incentive compensation programs to ensure that eligibility, target incentive opportunities, and pay mixes are consistent for roles of equivalent size and scope and do not unintentionally widen gaps.

   
   

3. Increase pay transparency within the organization to enhance accountability and trust across all levels.

   
   

4. Track representation by job level, not only overall gender ratios, to identify where equity breaks down in the talent pipeline.

   
   

5. Ensure there is management oversight of pay equity and representation at all levels.

Conclusion: Turning Insight Into Action

When job size is controlled, a significant portion of the gender pay gap can be explained, but not all of it. Achieving true pay equity requires not only structural consistency but also an awareness of the human and systemic factors that influence compensation decisions.

While job match remains a standard and effective way to assess compensation, job size can provide a more nuanced view by comparing roles based on value rather than title alone. This added perspective helps reduce the risk of inadvertently perpetuating pay gaps. Supported by our job-sized compensation database and expertise in job evaluation, market benchmarking, and incentive design, we help clients create fair, competitive, and defensible compensation structures.

¹Statistics Canada. (2025, June 9). Research to Insights: Wages in Canada, 1981 to 2024. Government of Canada, Statistics Canada. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-631-x/11-631-x2025003-eng.htm 

² Corona, D. F., Longpré-Verret, L.-M., & Ouyang, M. (2024, October 15). Gender pay gaps among board directors and officers in Canada. Government of Canada, Statistics Canada. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-621-m/11-621-m2024012-eng.htm

³ Macdonald, D. (2024, February 24). How the public sector is fighting income inequality (and why it’s still not enough). CCPA - Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. https://www.policyalternatives.ca/news-research/how-the-public-sector-is-fighting-income-inequality-and-why-its-still-not-enough/

⁴Short-Term Incentives are variable compensation rewards earned for achieving performance goals over a short period, typically one year or less.

⁵Long-Term Incentives are variable compensation rewards designed to motivate performance and retention over a multi-year period.

⁶The CEO role was omitted due to the large imbalance and over-representation of men across sectors in the Canadian market, which could result in a misleading or unjust comparison

⁷ Note that all dollar figures are for illustrative purposes only, and are not intended to reflect actual compensation benchmarks

⁸ Statistics Canada. (2024, October 15). Gender pay gaps among executives in Canada. Government of Canada, Statistics Canada. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-627-m/11-627-m2024037-eng.htm