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The Sun Life report shows 11,670 federal employees are now on disability collecting benefits for anywhere from a few months to 25 years or more. The plan’s membership hit a peak in 2010, when it covered about 242,000 public servants. (The bureaucracy has been shrinking with the Conservatives’ downsizing, falling to about 219,400 today, while the average age of those covered increased from 43.8 years old to 44.6.)

In absolute numbers, 1,968 women were approved for disability in 2013 compared with 864 men. Women on disability have outnumbered men by at least two-to-one every year for the past decade.

Some of this difference can be explained because there are more women than men in the public service: women today account for about 55 per cent of the workforce.

But even accounting for this, the rate of approved claims per 1,000 women is still 80 to 90 per cent higher than the rate per 1,000 men for the period between 2006 and 2013.

In 2013, the rate of approved claims per thousand for women was 92 per cent higher than for men.

Experts have scratched their heads for years over what’s behind the gender imbalance, but the issue doesn’t appear to be among the reasons the government is overhauling the way sick leave and disability are managed in the public service. Its overhaul is the first major change in nearly 45 years.

Shannon Bittman, vice-president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service, said unions hoped the issue would be addressed when Treasury Board launched its $5.6-million disability management initiative several years ago in a bid to get a handle on absenteeism and improve workplace health.