The gender pay gap is widening, with male university graduates in Australia now expected to earn on average $5,000 per year more than their female counterparts in their first year.
The 2012 GradStats report by Graduate Careers Australia shows median full-time employment starting salaries for male graduates are $55,000 (up from $52,000 in 2011) compared to $50,000 for women (no change from 2011), according to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, a government body.
The increase in the gender pay gap is concerning, the researchers say.
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“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,” Dr Caral Harris, research executive manager at the Workplace Gender Equality Agency said.
The report states that the pay gap is most prominent in industries such as architecture and building, dentistry, optometry and law.
In the architecture and building industries, young male graduates could expect to earn more than 17 per cent more than their female counterparts.
But some professional female graduates, like computer scientists, earth scientists, pharmacists and engineers could expect to earn slightly more than men, the agency said.
A female graduate pharmacist could earn about 10 per cent more than a male graduate in that field.
A similar pattern was seen for post-graduate degree-holders.
See the report here.
Education, humanities and medicine had no gender pay disparities for graduate level salaries.
