Hope you weren't counting too much on that degree, ladies. The pay gap between Australian female university graduates and their male colleagues more than doubled last year.
The new figures, released by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA), show female graduates are getting further away from pay equality, with the gap now at $5,000 (up from $2,000 the previous year). Men's starting salaries increased over the past year to $55,000, while women's are stuck on $50,000.
The gap is reportedly highest in architecture and building ($52,000 compared to $43,000), followed by dentistry, optometry and the law.
WGEA research executive manager Doctor Carla Harris told the ABC that the figures are disturbing, especially considering the majority of university graduates are women.
"The lesson here is that the gender pay gap continues to have a very real impact on the bank balance of young women starting their careers," she said. "I'm certain that any female school-leaver contemplating a career in dentistry would be outraged knowing she can expect to earn more than $14,000 less than a man in her first year on the job."
Dr Harris believes employers may be discriminating against young women who they think will only work for a brief time before starting a family.
"I think that that is certainly something which does go into people's minds and that's, frankly, that's discrimination and we need to be looking at how we are structuring our work practices to cope with the fact that women do need to take time off to have children," Dr Harris said.
"Frankly, it takes two to tango. We've never seen an immaculate conception and I don't think that is something that should become a woman's issue. It's actually a family issue and it is something that needs to be addressed in a more holistic sense, I would argue."
Read WGEA's GradStats report here:
2013-01-03 GradStats factsheet
(Via ABC)
