While the pay gap between men and women coming out of university has declined slightly, it remains significant.
According to the World Inequality Report 2018, from the world top 10% earning, Europe is the best region with just 37% gender pay gap issues, following by China with 47% and the middle ranging from 50-55% are in bub-Sahara Africa, Brazil and India, but the worst gender pay gap is in the middle east with 61%.
According to the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals, goal number 4 which is equality education which reported that most primary and secondary schools lack of educational opportunities and drop out are from South Asia and Sub-Sahara Africa region and those from Sub-Sahara and Latin Americas and even though these two regions children have completed schools, they don't necessary acquire basic reading or mathematics skills. Goal number 5 that is gender equality that is still tangled up with lots of issues especially domestic violence, physical abuse, , there still are some countries that don't have laws to protect women and girls from domestic violence or equally receive inheritance, or don't have to rights to own land, subject to sexual abuse, child bride, genital mutilation, lack of representation as leaders in both public and private entities or organizations. These are some of the circumstances that hinder women and girls from fulfilling their full potential to enable them to live a prosperious life as they contribute to a society.
The Grattan Institute Mapping Australian higher education 2018 report shows the graduate gender pay gap is narrowing a little but remains large. Though there are not enough jobs for more university graduates especially science sector. It has also found that job growth failed to keep up with the number of graduates almost double at 28% in early 2017 compare to just 15% in early 2008 before the Global Financial Crisis-GFC and jobs in science is pretty lagging behind other fields.
At present, female graduates are still expected to earn less than 27% compare to their male counterparts which is a slightly worse compare to 30% a decade ago. However female graduate from 2016 earned about 4% more than those in 2006.
Grattan Institute higher-education researcher Ittima Cherastidtham says, by contrast, early-career male graduates earned about 3 per cent less during the same time period due to a field that doesn't require those qualifications that they have learnt such as sales and services.
Ms Cherastidtham says another reason for the decrease in the gender pay gap is the increasing number of women with children staying in the workforce is because of the recent Australian childcare subsidy which enable women to go back to work and working for longer hours.
The study also shows graduates of both sexes who have completed bachelor degrees are earning less (just over $50,000) when they do enter the workforce.
Nursing and education graduates are paying a little bit than those who have studied science and commerce.
However, Catriona Jackson the chief executive of Universities Australia said that new graduates may earn less now but within a decade or over their lifetimes as they gain more experience they will earn more.
Greens education spokeswoman Mehreen Faruqi has expressed disappointment and has called the Australian government to invest more in science and technology as it is the forefront of these fields in order to create more of these future jobs for generations to come.
Despite gloomy employment outlook, and less enrollments within Australian universities, international students were still contributing more than $9 billion to Australian economy last year. #
Further readings:
- https://wir2018.wid.world/files/download/wir2018-summary-english.pdf
- https://grattan.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/907-Mapping-Australian-higher-education-2018.pdf
- https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/
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