If ever you needed convincing that the paygap is actually a thing...

That's an interesting viewpoint (and generalisation). I don't know many people (male or female) that could get away with just posturing - especially in the current climate where jobs are not at all secure.*

Depends how you word it though. There are many complaints at work about talentless men (NAMALT) who get on by managing upwards (and claiming credit for other's ideas) rather than doing their job and managing downwards (and helping develop others aspirations and careers).

I thought women out-earned men up to the age of thirty?
This is graduates though, is it non-graduate women out-earning men?

boys' confidence is terrible perhaps, but still way better than girls', judging by relative rates of depression and anxiety.

The fact that boys have anxieties around their performance of masculinity could simply demonstrate their understanding of the dynamic I describe above

Ref boys' underperformance in education. In the 'No more boys and Girls' series there was a dramatic decrease in boys' misbehaviour as a result of them actively fighting gender stereotypes. I absolutely agree Trills that the way we socialise boys disadvantages them in education.

There is also the lack of incentive. The boys see girls working hard vs boys misbehaving, but simultaneously see their dads out earning their mums and in positions of authority. It's not surprising many conclude working hard isn't necessary.

Not convinced at all by the above.

Boys’ confidence is terrible these days and they I think a lot of the ‘posturing’ is defensiveness.

Also boys used to ‘crack on’ a lot more when society was far more biased in their favour.

Boys are implicitly taught that their value rests on their personhood. Girls are implicitly taught that their value rests on their usefulness.

So girls tend to go off and work hard to prove how useful they are while boys are more prone to rely on their expectation that others will find them valuable regardless. The former strategy works better in situations where actual performance is measured e.g. exams, the latter in situations where confidently overselling yourself is half the battle, e.g. many workplaces

‘girls crack on with it while boys posture’

That's an interesting viewpoint (and generalisation). I don't know many people (male or female) that could get away with just posturing - especially in the current climate where jobs are not at all secure.

Is it other personal choices like taking more time off to look after children?
This is not a personal choice. Children need looking after or they will die, and having children is a biological imperative or the human race will die out. As many men as women have children yet it doesn't impact their career, often because their female partner is doing all the childcare. Read the facilitated men thread.

So what does explain the gap then? Is it other personal choices like taking more time off to look after children? Doing this earlier on in one's career? Is more to do with what goes on in the work place? A failure to ask for more money? A perception that women are less valuable employees? Merely observing a difference in what men and women earn on average is pretty pointless unless you try to figure out why.

It seems quite simple to me larry and it's about reward/incentive.
Girls are rewarded for being compliant and following rules. Boys are rewarded for being individuals. Yes girls do better at exams- exams have rules girls can follow. But it doesn't translate to better life outcomes. Hence no real incentive for boys to change. There is no reward for them to do so.

Noble,

As you put it ‘girls crack on with it while boys posture’. The interesting question is why.

There is value in investigating how boys learn most effectively and if they could be got to ‘crack on’ more.

However this is not the right part of the website to discuss that as I appreciate not subject matter of OP.

larry

Sorry if i have missed someone else comments

But i read an article that said that part of the reason more women go is that there are more spaces for 'female' subjects

So the amount of people that can take English literature is many more than those taking physics

That could obviously be wrong but it was interesting

'Women choose lower paying vocational careers such as caring and nursing'.

'Women graduates are a lower standard than male graduates'.

These attitudes are why women earn less. Both for doing the same job at the same grade as men, or as an average over our working lives.

Obviously once in the workplace, the system of rewarding bullshit posturing that I’m sure we’ve all encountered takes priority and men surge forward.

So true

There's another thread on here about facilitated men. I think at the point where women start to have children this facilitation kicks in in earnest permitting the males to surge ahead. Not only do men not pay a penalty for having children but I suspect it advantages them in terms of the perception of them by others as having more gravitas.

I'd be interested to see a bit more depth to the data - what industries are they graduates in for example.

If female engineering graduates are earning less than male engineering graduates then it proves the point, but if more women are graduating with Media degrees whilst more men are graduating with Law degrees then it's harder to prove as the pay expectations for the industries are different.

Education system favours female learning style

How about the way we socialise boys disadvantages them in education?

Education system favours female learning style

This ‘female learning style’ is ‘cracking on with the work’ in contrast to the more typical male swagger of ‘I didn’t revise at all for my GCSEs and I did all right’. One is rewarded with higher grades, because teaching is so feminised.

Obviously once in the workplace, the system of rewarding bullshit posturing that I’m sure we’ve all encountered takes priority and men surge forward.

I suspect a breakdown by subject would feed into the balance of

"women choose lower-paying careers/subjects"
combined with
"careers/subjects thought of as female are paid less"

Girls outperform boys in every GCSE subject apart from maths where performance is almost equal. Boys' performance at English GCSE is dire. I expect this feeds into A-level (haven't looked at the data) and therefore onto uni applications.

But this was true back when the educational system was different too - ref the 11 plus exam that you had to get a higher mark on as a girl to pass.

How is it that boys, throughout education, over 50 years of educational methods, persistently do worse, and yet still earn more?

also think there is an element here of traditionally female areas of work being lower paid BECAUSE they are female dominated.

Yes, definitely.

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