Profile: Women in Canadian public relations

Abstract

The author of this article has taken a close look at trends that show sharp increases in the number of women choosing public relations as a career, and has zeroed in on Canadian practitioners for analysis. While this study did not examine bias in the workplace per se, a number of significant patterns stood out which strongly indicate that female practitioners in Canada mirror the same handicaps documented in studies of U.S. practitioners: They have less authority and lower salaries than men in the profession. Few hold senior management positions; only a third feel they exert influence on policy-making in their organizations. The author poses a question: Will young men moving into the field, with higher education levels than the women studied here have attained, advance any faster or further? Judith Scrimger is an assistant professor in the Department of Public Relations, Mount Saint Vincent University, Halifax, Nova Scotia.