The CPP Numbers Tell a Story

 The CPP Numbers Tell a Story

Let's make this really simple.

CPP is based mainly on how much money you earned and how long you paid into CPP.

So imagine two people.

One leaves school young and goes to work in a mill, logging, mining, construction or another full-time job. Maybe he never becomes good with computers. Maybe he can barely type.

But he works for 40 years.

He pays into CPP for 40 years.

His pension can be quite good.

And honestly, he earned it.

This isn't about saying men shouldn't get their pensions.

It is about asking why the system has historically worked better for some kinds of work than others.

A woman might spend years raising children.

She might care for an elderly parent.

She might work part-time.

She might clean houses, look after other people's children, work temporary jobs, or earn less money.

She may work just as hard—or harder—but much of that work doesn't produce CPP contributions.

And that follows her into old age.

Here are the numbers

According to the Canadian government, the average CPP retirement pension at age 65 was about $877 a month in April 2026.

The maximum was about $1,508 a month.

But you don't automatically get the maximum.

Your CPP depends on how much you earned and how long you contributed.

And there is an important gender difference.

Government statistics have shown that women's average CPP retirement pensions are substantially lower than men's.

One recent federal statistics report showed average monthly CPP retirement pensions of approximately $575 for women compared with $779 for men.

That's a difference of about $204 every month.

Think about that.

That's more than $2,400 a year.

And this isn't because women don't work.

Women work.

They just haven't always been paid as much, worked the same number of paid hours, or had the same uninterrupted careers.

Here's the part I want people to think about

A man could spend his working life in a sawmill.

A woman could spend hers raising the children who came home from that sawmill worker's job, looking after the house, caring for family and perhaps working outside the home too.

The man's paid work is recorded.

His CPP contributions are recorded.

The woman's unpaid work often isn't.

Both lives mattered.

But the pension system doesn't measure them in the same way.

CPP does have special rules that can protect some people during years when they had low or no earnings while raising children. But those protections don't erase the larger economic differences that build up over a lifetime.

And that is why I think we need to ask a much bigger question:

What counts as work?

If someone spends 20 years caring for children, is that work?

If someone spends 10 years caring for an aging parent, is that work?

If someone keeps a household running so another person can work full-time, is that work?

If someone works part-time because there is nobody else to care for the family, is that work?

Of course it is.

But our pension system is much better at counting a paycheque than counting unpaid care.

And then we reach our 60s.

Suddenly we are told:

“You don't have enough money.”

Well, where did all those years of work go?

They went into families.

They went into communities.

They went into other people's careers.

They went into caring for people.

They went into keeping households alive.

And now some women reach their early 60s with very little financial cushion.

That is why this isn't simply a story about men having bigger pensions.

It is a story about whose work gets counted.

And I think Canada needs to have that conversation before more women fall through the cracks.