The income inequality gap between racialized and non-racialized Canadians barely shrunk between the mid-2000s and mid-2010s, a new study has found.

Monday’s report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) found significant divisions in personal wealth based on race and gender in Canada.

While such unequal structures have long been known, the study, which investigated the gaps using federal census data, observed little-to-no progress in further closing the income gap between 2005 and 2015.

Racialized men made $0.78 in 2015 for every dollar non-racialized men earned, the same ratio that existed 10 years before.

While racialized women saw their income gap close by three cents in the decade, they only earned $0.59 cents for every dollar white men made in 2015. White women earned $0.67 for every dollar white men earned that year, growing by four cents in the decade prior.

The study also found racialized and gendered disparities in employment, poverty levels and earnings among immigrants.

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Sheila Block, senior economist at CCPA and one of the co-authors of the report, said the numbers illustrate persisting systemic barriers in Canada.

“All of those measures point to a clear pattern of racialized economic inequality in Canada,” she said. “We really have to look at the systemic racism that is underlying our institutions. And that really needs to be addressed in a systemic way.”

Block, who wrote the analysis with Ryerson University professor Grace-Edward Galabuzi and CCPA economist Ricardo Tranjan, said besides a lack of government policies needed to address economic inequalities for racialized Canadians in that time, the structure of labour has shifted.

Today, precarious, gig-economy and dispersed work seeing companies increasing rely on subcontracting low-wage workers is more the norm.

“We know that racialized workers are more likely to be in those precarious jobs, are more likely to be in those low wage jobs,” she said. “Those are factors have the potential to worsen the situation, and I think our policy and regulation needs to catch up.”

The analysis also observes differences in employment. Racialized men and women are more active in the labour force but were more likely to be unemployed.

Women are generally less active in the labour force compared to men. But for racialized women, the unemployment rate was 3.2 percentage points higher compared to white women in both 2006 and 2016.

For racialized men, the unemployment rate was 0.6 percentage points higher than white men in 2016, although that gap marks a decline from a 1.5 percentage point difference a decade prior.

Much of that is due to notable declines in employment among non-racialized men, although all groups faced lower employment in 2016 compared to 2006.

Not all racial categories were the same, with some groups, such as Chinese and South Asian, having lower unemployment rates compared to the non-racialized population. Black, Arab and West Asian individuals, on the other hand, were more likely to be unemployed. Similar trends also exist for incomes.

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In the study, racialized Canadians include members of visible minority categories. Because of differences in how data was collected, Indigenous people could not be included in the study.

In the 2016 census, racialized individuals accounted for 7.7 million people, 22 per cent of the country’s population, up from 16 per cent a decade prior.

The study also looks at the immigrant experience. Racialized men and women earned $0.71 and $0.79, respectively, for every dollar earned by non-racialized immigrant men and women, a gap that also extends beyond the second generation.

Block said there’s a simplistic narrative Canadians like to tell themselves about immigration — that regardless of where they come from in the world, if they work hard, they’re able to improve their socio-economic outcomes.

“I think we really need to unpack that,” she said. “And when we look at it, there are very different outcomes for racialized immigrants than there are for non racialized immigrants.”

Disparities are also observed in wealth-based income, something that was recorded in the recent census. The racialized population were less likely to have capital gains and investment income, and the average wealth it brought in was smaller compared to the white population.

When it comes to poverty, 20 per cent of the racialized population in 2015 were below the low-income measure — which captures the number of people living on an income less than half of the median income of the total population. That figure exceeds the 12.2 per cent of the non-racialized population below the threshold.

Block said one thing governments can do is boost employment standards on working conditions and pay and tackle systemic discrimination in hiring and promotions. She said increases to the minimum wage are needed as well.

“Because racialized workers are disproportionately in precarious and low wage work, when you raise the floor that definitely has a benefit,” she said.

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