This section shares OPS data used to track progress towards the goal of diversifying OPS senior leadership.

Data looks at the diversity of senior leadership compared to the Ontario labour force and to the OPS overall. Results for the diversity of groups in pathways to leadership, annual opportunities to diversify, and the extent to which ministries met their annual pathway to leadership targets are also reported.

Based on the results, we continue to observe that within the OPS, employees with disabilities, Indigenous and racialized employees are experiencing the greatest gaps in representation in senior leadership roles relative to the Ontario labour force.

In the leadership and pathways to leadership tables, data is presented for each underrepresented group, except for the section on ‘intersectional results for the OPS and OPS leadership.’ Aggregate groups (such as those included in the category of ‘racialized’) are not homogenous in their experiences and there is a great deal of diversity within each of them.

Intersectional results for OPS and OPS senior leadership

People belong to more than one socio-demographic group (for example, Black women, Indigenous women, women with disabilities), which impacts lived experiences of opportunity, discrimination and systemic employment barriers. Looking at intersectional results allows us to understand how employees belonging to more than one underrepresented group are represented in the OPS overall and in leadership, highlighting more specific gaps to consider. Individuals belonging to more than one underrepresented group experience unique barriers to access and inclusion that are not linked to one dimension of identity alone.

As such, data is presented for the following intersections:

  • gender and disability
  • gender and Indigenous identity
  • gender and race

Intersectional data is shared in this report to bring a more nuanced perspective to the discussion of leadership opportunities for underrepresented talent in the OPS. At this time, ministries have not set pathway targets for intersectional groups. Data used to track progress on pathway targets is limited by reporting thresholds, and it is challenging to track and measure progress when combining for two groups at the ministry level, where numbers may be too small to support reliable estimates.