TORONTO—A new report says women in Canada have more than regained the jobs they lost early in the pandemic, but they still face imbalances, especially in key child-rearing years.(RBC)

The report from RBC Economics says after plummeting to a three-decade low at the onset of the crisis, the labour market participation rate for women rebounded just as sharply.

It found a record 84 per cent of women between the prime working ages of 25 and 54 in the workforce last year.

However, the report says there remains a nearly eight per cent difference in women’s and men’s labour market participation rates – a gap that’s twice as wide for parents with young children.

While RBC sees more women entering higher-paying industries, it says the gap between men’s and women’s pay remains virtually unchanged from before the pandemic.

The report says women between the ages of 25 and 54 with young children under the age of six earned 87 cents for every dollar earned by fathers with children of the same age.

Women in the same age bracket with children between the ages of six and 12 earned 82 cents for every dollar earned by men with children in the same age group.

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